A Series of Homicidal Events: Featuring 'The 7'
by cole smiles
Summary: Takes place in Harry's seventh year. Follows the events of an eccentric group of slytherin girls in the year below. Psychobabble. Lots of action. Somewhat pointless, but enjoyable to read and write.// Rated M for Adult Content.// If you read it, review.
1. Salad Forks and Redhaired Mayham

Nicole looked out the train window at the passing towns, "I am seriously bored."

"Get laid?" TD suggested idly, turning the pages of her beloved Quibbler.

Nicola and Briellen sat up interested in this particular turn of the conversation. "Who's getting laid?" Briellen asked excitedly, reaching for her magical Video Camera, she had purchased in the Weasley twins new store (To which she was a frequent visitor; her friends believed this had nothing to do with the products in the store.

"No one," Isabel replied rudely. "No one, except me and Anie that is!" She grinned in Anie's direction.

Anie looked confused. "Since when was I getting any?"

Isabel smashed the seat angrily with her pale and delicate long fingered hands. "SINCE LAST NIGHT! Or don't you remember?"

As Anie giggled nervously, Nicola poked Isabel in the ribs and motioned at Briellen's Video Camera. "I haven't forgotten. In fact I will re-live it over and over."

TD looked up from her Quibbler, "Shut up already. I need to know how to banish a Mons Monster."

Looking around, Nicole realised there was only six of them. It took her a while to notice that Ivy's little head was not in the carriage. "Where's Ivy?"

Everyone shrugged, except Nicola, who was still too busy looking at TD's cheese. Being the only worried ones, Anie and Nicole set off down the train corridor in search of Ivy.

"We're nearly at school, I wonder where she went."

Anie stopped dead, and looked at Nicole with a horrified expression. "She's so small! What if someone stepped on her?"

Doubting this, and thinking Anie quite mad; Nicole ignored her politely and continued looking for Ivy. They searched endlessly, in every bin, in every pocket and under every seat – but Ivy was no where to be found. Finally, exhausted the pair retired to a nearby closet for a water break. Upon opening the closet door, Nicola and Isabel tumbled out to land at Anie and Nicole's feet.

Entirely unabashed and standing on Nicola's fingers, Isabel stood and regarded Anie and Nicole with a severe expression. "How dare you intrude?"

Nicola yelled in pain at her crushed fingers, and stabbed Isabel in the leg with a salad fork she just happened to be holding. Isabel pulled out her wand – pointed it at Nicola and yelled, "CRUCIO" Leaving Nicola on the floor writhing in pain she turned back to Nicole and Anie. "As I was saying…"

"Why were you in the closet?" Anie peered into the stale darkness of the train closet and sniffed around at the air. "IS THAT PASTA?"

Isabel gave Anie shifty eyes, and replied without much conviction…"Of course not."

Nicole helped Nicola to her feet and shoved Isabel to the side before searching the small dark closet. "IT IS PASTA! And…Ivy?" Hesitantly, Nicole yanked at something suspended on one of the coat-hangers. "Ivy! What have you done to her?"

Isabel and Nicola merely shrugged, "she makes good pasta."

"No," Isabel contradicted thoughtfully. "Nicole's mum makes good pasta. Oh my god, that pasta with the mutton, when the tomatoes are ripe and the mutton's nice and lean…" Isabel smacked her lips together, "they're so perky I love that."

"How did you know I had mutton pasta today? I haven't even taken out my lunch yet." Nicole momentarily forgot Ivy who was still suspended in mid-air.

Looking down at the floor Isabel muttered, "Because I ate it…" Nicole was outraged, Nicola was outraged, "You said you'd share!" Within moments the pair were tussling on the floor like a couple of house elves. Anie had left then to it and along with Nicole removed Ivy from the Imperius curse she had been placed under and dragged her back to their compartment.

Briellen motioned at Ivy, "This day just keeps getting weirder, what did they do to her this time?"

"Imperiused her, and made her make them pasta. You know what they're like." Nicole threw herself into one of the chairs and helped herself to Nicola's discarded pile of chocolate frogs. Anie started a game of exploding snap with Briellen, and TD yelled at them about needing quiet.

"Mons Monsters are quite dangerous – they make you itch quite terribly from what I've read."

"That's because Mons Monster is actually a code name for you know, lice downstairs. The quibbler hasn't quite caught onto that yet," scoffed Isabel, who had just entered alongside Nicola.

"Oh," said TD; watching Isabel Accio all the chocolate frogs away from Nicole.

"What do you do if they're downstairs? Call a witch exterminator?"

"You could say that, I like to call it my trusty razor-blade though."

"What does a razor-blade do if–"she paused, coming to a realization. "Oh!"

"You idiot."

Nicole peered out the window again, "It's starting to get dark. We should start getting changed."

Changing proved to be an issue. Isabel managed to get her foot stuck in a tie; which was conveniently around Nicole's neck. After ten to twenty minutes of arm flailing action the group managed to get un-tangled and dressed. During this time they also dressed the semi-conscious Ivy by shoving her arms through her robe sleeves and the tie onto her neck.

"You friggin' stepped on my face!" Nicole spat at Isabel.

Isabel nodded her head towards Nicole and brought out her wand, "I'd watch what I were saying if I were you"

Nicole whipped out her wand also and glared at Isabel. Frightened the rest of the group tried to tear them apart. "Come on guys, no fighting we have to go get a carriage." TD said impatiently.

One by one they stepped lightly onto the platform and were swept away by a swamp of students. Briellen immediately lost the group and wandered around the masses of students – hoping to find a carriage by herself. She squinted and looked around her hopefully, it was starting to get cold and Briellen's nose had become frighteningly close in colour to her hair. Briellen started to panic and looked around her again, but little did she know a certain red haired someone was staring at her from afar.

"Ron," said Hermione "what are you looking at? We're supposed to go and meet Harry." But Ron seemed not to hear her and stared after Briellen wistfully, clutching at the front of his pants.

Looking up from Ron's pants and spotting what he was looking at, Hermione screeched in his ear, "Stop that! Don't look at her! LOOK AT ME!"

But Ron did not hear her unnaturally loud scream and was still staring at the flustered and lonely Briellen, who was beginning to cry.

The others didn't really notice the lack of golden red hair that Briellen added to the group. Anie and Ivy (who had recovered) did have that nagging feeling that they were forgetting something. They dismissed it however, deeming it the result of nerves they always seemed to get when returning to the school they all loved. They managed to find a carriage and shove TD inside before she realised that Isabel was practicing her 'Incendio' charm of her latest edition of the Quibbler. Inside the carriage they all enjoyed a bumpy ride, with a lot of head smacking on the roof and cursing from Nicola. Anyone who happened to be outside at the time must have been thinking a formidable Mons Monster inside of the carriage, along with the six girls.

When finally the joyful ride came to an end, the group thankfully jumped out, only to now trek through the night towards the castle doors. It was breathtaking; as usual. The castle was lit up by the thousands of candles burning brightly at each window. The group was surprisingly re-united with a sobbing Briellen who was murmuring something thickly about being groped by a giant squid.

Everybody walked in normally into the hall, except for Ivy who was being pushed in roughly by a particularly homicidal Isabel and Nicola. Upon reaching the Slytherin table, Isabel shoved Ivy so hard that she fell forwards and with a loud crack that echoed through the hall, broke her nose. Unfortunately for her the disturbance of her head hitting the seat upset candles hovering above. The candles then fell on Ivy's head, singeing off her hair; rendering her bald.

When McGonagall spotted this she rushed over to remedy the situation. With a casual flick of the wrist, Ivy's nose was repaired, the blood vanished but she said, "I don't know what to do about your hair Miss. Lam. You will have to go to Madam Pomfrey, but in the meantime." She flicked her wrist again, and a wig of curly black hair appeared. "This will have to do."

She turned to Isabel, "That's a detention for you Miss. Steele. I will see you in my office on Saturday. Also Miss. Lucena, Professor Snape requires you in detention also on Saturday. That will be all." She turned on her heel and with a flurry of skirts, left the group alone.

TD looked at Anie, a pink flush creeping up her neck, "what do you think he wants me for, I haven't done anything wrong."

"I suppose," said Nicole thoughtfully "he really took an interest in you – last year. You do remember of course, the love potion you made for your O.W.L's potions exam? He was really impressed; maybe he wants to talk to you about the grade?"

Nicole and Briellen giggled, making TD blush harder. "Yes, but he was cruel to me. I didn't even think he liked me in class."

"He's intrigued by you," said Isabel scornfully, as if she were pointing out the most obvious thing in the world. "It's the way these things go. Maybe if you get your head out of the Quibbler, you might be able to face a real Mons Monster someday."

"you're not funny Isabel," said Ivy seriously, sitting down at the Slytherin table and folding her arms across her chest.

"Oh shut up baldie," she snapped back, sitting down next to her and looking, expectantly at the silver plates willing them to fill up with food. Ivy fidgeted with her wig and shot Isabel and nasty look. Just as the rest of the group sat down, Dumbledore stood shakily and addressed the masses of students.

"Welcome to the new and welcome back to the old."

"See what you did?" Isabel whispered to Ivy. "You made us miss the sorting."

Ivy spun around, "So it's my fault? I just shoved myself into the chair did I? Broke my own nose?" She gave Isabel a disgusted look. "You make me sick."

Isabel smiled sweetly, "Why thank you, I do try my best."

"Isn't he supposed to be dead?" Nicole muttered to Briellen, across the table.

Briellen glanced at Dumbledore thoughtfully, "that's what I heard. I guess he's okay then."

"I guess…"

TD glanced up, "he looks a little weird to me…"

So he did. When Dumbledore stood and prepared himself to talk again, he did look strange. Sort of, jerky. He did not seem to blink, but he opened his arms wide and boomed loudly, "I hope you are all in excellent health. I am of course here to assure you that every person, creature and object are safe here at Hogwarts. Furthermore I would like to announce the arrival of Professor Fiennes, who will be taking up the post of Defence against the Dark Arts for this year. Welcome Professor!" A young brown haired man stood and blushed at an enthusiastic and loud round of applause from the female students and staff. He sat down and glanced at the group of Slytherin girls, who were eying him, appreciating his fine sense of dress.

Dumbledore had been in the process of instructing the students to quiet their talkative stomachs when his head dropped unrepentantly onto his chest. Weirdly enough, Dumbledore kept talking. A murmur came over the crowd and Isabel looked at Nicole with a shocked expression, "what's wrong with him?"

Nicole shrugged with her mouth open as Hagrid coughed loudly and glanced towards the ceiling. Dumbledore stopped speaking, laughed and with a very puppet stiff-like hand; picked fluff off his pinstriped robes and fluttered a hand at the crowd, "fluff gets into all sorts of things my dear children, including food. So snap it up before it does."

The plates in front of them immediately filled up and within moments, Nicola and Isabel were back for seconds. And no wonder, the food that immediately filled the hall made Nicole's mum's cooking seem like dog food. This food had a range of aromas and flavours so varied that Isabel wanted to eat everything there, including the tables.

When they were all conveniently stuffed, Dumbledore dismissed them all to their beds. The group went down to the dungeons to rest up for their first day back when a second year got in the way. Without waiting for him to move Nicole punched him hard in the face, knocking him backwards onto the floor; unconscious.

"Nicole," exclaimed Nicola, "you punched my second year! And he knew the password."

"How do you know that?" said Ivy.

"Legimency," Nicola replied happily, "now we would have to wait out here all night, were it not for me!" She pushed the pear on the bowl of fruit painting that was the entrance to the Slytherin common room. "Spindle legs!" She proclaimed and the painting swung forwards in admittance to reveal the black and green common room. A roaring black fire flecked with silver, was burning in the hearth as always.

The group threw themselves into the lounged and sighed. Ivy whipped out her timetable and groaned, "Double potions first tomorrow."

TD grinned, and Isabel mimicked her behind her back.

"I need sleep, goodnight all." Nicole yawned and wandered off to bed. One by one they drifted off to bed, leaving the flames burning out slowly until the last spark puffed out.

A/N: Sorry if the story isn't edit well, I'm having screen malfunctions, but bear with me. By the way, all of my friends really are as insane as this. I hope you liked the weirdo story

R&R people.


	2. I MUST SHAG HARRY POTTER

Anie turned over and slept on peacefully; dreaming of platinum hair. She moaned to herself and woke up in a sweat; sitting bold upright. She found herself staring directly into Nicola's bright green eyes.

Nicola smiled at her. "What the story morning glory?"

Anie rubbed her eyes sleepily, squirmed and Nicola fell to the floor with a thud. "Uh," she hesitated. "What's the time?"

Briellen glanced at Nicola, hardly able to contain her laughter. "Nearly time for double potions, if you hurry you might be able to get some breakfast.

Anie blanched; a day without breakfast – how could she manage? "We have to hurry! Quick, go get my robes, I left them downstairs!"

Puzzled, Briellen looked up after Nicola as she went to fetch the robes. "Why are they downstairs exactly?"

"Never mind, help me! Zip up my skirt."

Five minutes later found the trio sprinting to Potions, a limp piece of toast dangling from Anie's fingertips. Snape was hardly pleased, his lip curled viciously as they stopped, red faced and puffing to congregate outside his dungeon door.

Ron and Harry arrived in a similar fashion, although Snape, being Snape, proceeded to deduct twenty points from them, negligent to the fact that they were not late. The group, once inside, bustled around a table – two per cauldron.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dean Thomas were un-expectantly also in the room and sitting at another table, despite their not being in sixth year. Both Ron and Harry were staring ardently at the seven girls sitting at the front. Even Dean was overcome with desire, he too also stared. Hermione however was tight-lipped with her arms folded, staring pointedly in the other direction.

Snape addressed the class, "Welcome to Potions Sixth years." He said this opening his arms, as if it wasn't apparent that he wished them all a painful death. (All except a minority of the Slytherin's.)

Hermione stood and said, "Some of us are actually in Seventh year, Sir. But Professor Dumbledore said that because teachers are scarce, we're to come and assist, and you will give us separate instructions –"

"Yes, I am quite aware of this Miss Granger." He pointed his wand at her sharply and she sat down with a squeak. "As ridiculous as this sounds; I am actually informed of goings-on at Hogwarts."

"Sorry Sir," Hermione answered untroubled, used to this sort of treatment.

Snape it seemed was feigning deafness and went on as if Hermione had not rudely interrupted him. "Now I will write a set of instructions on the board and you will follow them." He brought out his wand from under the black folds of his robes and waved it elegantly at the blackboard on which white writing appeared. He waved his wand a second time but at a board to the side of the room, another set of instructions for the Seventh years appeared. "Begin," he said thickly.

There was a moment of chaos as everyone scrambled to the supplies closet and hurried back to begin hastily lighting a fire beneath their cauldrons. TD however moved to the front desk to talk to Snape. He flipped his dark hair out of his eyes elegantly when he realised she was approaching, smiling shyly.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you professor, but I just had to ask. What is the manner of your disapproval of me that I may receive a detention for nothing?"

"Disapproval?" He looked at her curiously, "quite the contrary. Who told you I had given you detention?"

"Professor McGonagall, Sir. She said I was to meet you in your office this Saturday."

He started, "No. Well yes, I did tell her to inform you that I required your presence." A creeping blush made its way up his neck so he coughed and shook his glossy hair over it. "I need to make a potion for Madam Pomfrey. She has run out of Skele-Gro and it is a potion that is made quite quickly and I need an extra pair of hands. Of all my students, you show the most aptitude –" His eyes roamed over her body, "in all areas."

TD's honey coloured eyes twinkled, "I would be delighted to help you, sir."

"Then it is decided, back to your work Lucena."

From across the room, Ivy watched this with narrowed eyes, "What's with them?"

Nicole ignored her, "pass me your silver knife Isabel." Isabel thrust the knife at her blade first and Nicole deflected it with her wrist. "Pass Isabel, not stab."

"I just don't get it," Ivy said earnestly, leaning on the desk and watching Nicole dice up her slab of oxen thigh.

"What's not to get?" Nicole flung the knife back across the tale and tipped the meat into her cauldron – which turned red immediately. She faced Ivy squarely, "They like each other! What's wrong with that?"

Ivy slapped Briellen's hand as she attempted to eat the oxen meat – Nicole, Isabel and Anie egging her on loudly.

"He's so vile!"

"It's really none of our business," this was said with an air of finality and Ivy noted that the conversation was over.

Ivy was silenced and surrendered to Hermione as she came around for an equipment check. Hermione looked over everyone's kits and tutted to herself when she came to Nicole's.

"This knife is very old." She said haughtily holding up Nicole's silver knife between two fingers.

"That's why I used Isabel's." Nicole pointed out mildly.

"You should get a new one." Hermione said up her nose at Nicole. (As Nicole was much taller than her.)

Nicole snatched back the knife, "dish out a few sickles and buy me one then," she snapped.

"It's almost as bad as Ginny's kit." Hermione continued gesturing at the red-haired girl who was conversing fervently with Harry.

"Oh is it now?" Ivy's eyes narrowed for the second time this lesson as they snapped upon Ginny.

The two had never gotten along, and competed in everything. Being in the same year grade it was easy for them to compete in lessons – but Ginny was in Gryffindor so it was a lot harder to compete with her in the Harry department.

Last year, Ginny had gained points in that game by actually making out with Harry, when Ivy hadn't even snogged him yet. She had been very out of it lately and therefore had fallen prey to the antics of Nicola and Isabel. However now, back at school and to regain her hair very soon, Ivy has had her task firmly re-written in her mind: I MUST SHAG HARRY POTTER.

She moved now with the poise and grace of a girl on a mission. Her dark brown eyes were set unblinking above pursed lips. Her straight black hair fell forwards over her shoulders as she stepped across the room.

"Harry," she said sweetly. "I haven't seen you in ages. How are you doing?"

He swung around with a grin on his face, "Hivy! Do you get it? Hi Ivy. Hivy. I've been working on that all summer."

"Uh," she hesitated, not knowing if he was joking or not.

He laughed at the expression on her face, "you thought I was joking? No Ivy."

"Novy? She teased; toying with her hair.

"Yesvy, I mean No. I **was** thinking about you all summer." He ruffled his hair with his free hand and chuckled at Ginny, Ron and Hermione – who were all staring open-mouthed.

Ivy smirked at Ginny and whispered in Harry's ear, "We'll talk later."

"About what?" he replied, but Ivy held a finger to his lips and walked away.

Upon reaching the table Nicole scoffed, "you hypocrite."

* * *

It was lunchtime and they all sat around the table eating and drinking… as you do, when it's lunchtime. TD was explaining the conversation that had taken place between her and Snape earlier.

She finished talking, breathless and pink in the face – waiting for replied and input from her friends. "Well?" She prompted eager to hear what they had to say.

"Well," started Isabel "I must say, Snapey is looking quite fine this year."

Anie nodded her head but Nicola shuddered, "No. Not Snape! He is not fine. But I'm not the one that likes him, so my opinion doesn't matter."

"When does it?" TD snapped, hurt that anyone could find Snape unattractive.

"Sticks and stones TD, sticks and stones." Nicola replied quite calmly while reaching for another sausage.

"I'll give you sticks and stones, you bitch!" And without further ado, TD launched herself over the table at Nicola.

"Settle down," said a deep voice. The girls stopped pulling at each others hair and looked up into Professor Fiennes' face. "Come now, look around you – can you see anyone else fighting?"

They all looked up to see the majority of the hall locked in some sort of combat.

"Uh," he said. "Ignore that."

Nicole racked her brains for a change of topic. "Sir, we have Defence against the Dark Arts now, what are we going to learn this year?"

Fiennes' light blue eyes snapped onto her, "You take an interest in the subject?"

"Yes sir."

Isabel winked, "She does sir."

"Well then, Miss. Corvin, I will be sure to give you a lesson outline, just as soon as we get to class. Come on, you lot – and get off the floor." He spun around on his heel and strode off elegantly to the third floor. The group followed strangely army-like behind him.

They all entered the classroom noiselessly and took their seats at the front of the classroom. He faced the students, "You are my first class this year my dear Slytherin's and Hufflepuff's. Welcome to Defence against the Dark Arts. Now I know a few of your names, but for those I don't – you will have to help me along the way. Now what can you do?"

Isabel's hand shot up into the air immediately, and Fiennes smiled and bowed his head at her, "Yes, Miss –?"

"Isabel Steele, sir." Isabel answered. "And as for what we can do, I can do a whole lot of curses and hexes – I know a few intricate and gruesome ones if you would like to see?" Nicole nodded her head enthusiastically.

Fiennes looked at them unblinkingly. "Uh, that's all well and good Miss. Steele. I meant curriculum-wise though…"

Ivy's hand shot up, "Sir, we are up to date on everything. Only we did not complete our Defence against the Dark Arts O.W.L and are expected to take it this term."

"Ah yes, I was informed of this. Would you like to revise this lesson?"

Several members of the class nodded while the rest shouted approval. "Alright," he held up his hand to stem the flow of noise. "Practise away – but I expect nothing broken and no one injured."

TD snorted, "Good luck with that."

"Pardon, Miss Lucena?" Fiennes asked her sternly.

"Nothing Sir. It's just our class is not known for careful combat – even in practise."

Now it was Fiennes' turn to snort, "I don't doubt that, judging from this afternoon at lunch. But never mind that. You would like to revise so revise you shall."

The group split into pairs, leaving Nicole to find a partner among the Hufflepuff's. She wandered around aimlessly and contemplated hexing her friends from under a desk when Fiennes approached her.

"No partner Miss Corvin?" He asked her curiously fiddling with his robes.

"No, sir. There are seven people in our group and it's my turn to be left out. U was trying to find a partner among the Hufflepuff's but for some strange reason – they're avoiding me."

Fiennes chuckled, "Fancy that. What will you do?"

"Throw hexes at myself in a mirror?" She said gesturing at the tall, cracked mirror that was shoved in the corner of the room. As she turned her head back to face Fiennes her amazingly long hair flicked him rather hard in the face and he fell with a thump to the floor.

She looked around the see where he had gone and spotted him on the floor. "What are you doing down there?" she held out her hand and he grasped it carefully – pulling himself to his feet.

"Your hair, Corvin – it hit me in the face," he replied as casually as one can while plucking extremely long hair from between one's teeth.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!"

"No problem," Fiennes said bringing his out his wand. "I'll revise with you if you wish."

Nicole agreed and for the remainder of the lesson they practised, except when Isabel made Fiennes run across the room before she had the chance to Avada Kedavra Nicola.

By the time the bell rang for the end of the lesson, both Fiennes and Nicole were slumped against one of the tables, panting and sweaty. Fiennes looked at Nicole appreciatively. "You've done well this lesson Corvin. You will without a doubt pass your exam."

"Thankyou Sir." Nicole beamed at Fiennes and pushed her fringe out of her eyes. "Thanks for helping me!"

She turned and ran out the door with her friends. Isabel and Nicole made their way to the Slytherin common room as the rest of the group headed to the toilet. On their way there they passed Nearly Headless Nick and the Bloody Baron, who were torturing each other with Filch's vacuum cleaner that he had ordered from Witch Weekly.

Upon entering the common room Nicole and Isabel sought out Draco, and found him lying in a corner hiding from the masses of girls who were vying for his attention.

Nicole cleared her throat, "Hey Draco, heard you got captain." She pointed at his badge. "Congratulations. When are you holding trials?"

Draco looked up at them, his grey eyes dark. Running a hand though his hair he stood, "Soon enough ladies, maybe this Saturday."

"Could we hold them on Sunday, Malfoy? Please, I've got detention for breaking Lam's nose on Saturday."

He chuckled, "Good work. Alright. Tell everyone they're on Sunday."

"Okay," Nicole murmured. Draco lifted and hand in farewell and wandered out the painting hole.

Isabel did a jig, "Oh yeah! If I could high five myself, I would right now!"

"You could. You do have two hands."

Isabel scoffed, "Not the point."

"Okay…" Nicole sat down. "We should study for our Theory DADA test."

"I'll do fine in that," Isabel replied – but nevertheless she sat cross legged on the floor beside Nicole and pulled a book towards her. After quizzing each other for some time, Isabel began to get hungry, (not an unfamiliar feeling for her) and they took their DADA books down to meet the group for dinner.

"Potatoes!" Isabel yelled gleefully, pushing her books into Nicole's hands before sprinting off to the Slytherin table.

Nicole dropped the heavy books to the floor unable to carry them. She brought out her wand and pointed it down, "Wingardium leviosa!" With her wand Nicole directed the books to the table and walked in after them.

"You left me to carry your books!" Nicole said hotly, sitting down.

Isabel grunted, "Can't talk – mmf – eating."

"So what did he say?" Anie asked excitedly.

"Trials are on Sunday. Hogsmeade this Saturday too, I saw it on the notice board outside. Sorry TD, Isabel, you'll have to miss out." Nicole laughed at TD's expression, but Isabel was too engrossed in eating to care.

They all noticed Briellen staring at the Gryffindor table, and Anie prodded her. "Just go and talk to him."

"Talk to whom?" Nicole asked, dragging the plate of roast beef towards her – much to Nicola's dismay.

"Ron." Anie said sadly. "She just won't go and talk to him. I'm trying to get her over there, but she just won't listen to me!"

Nicola tugged at Briellen's flame coloured hair, "She's worried that he won't like her hair"

Briellen slapped Nicola's hand away, "No that's not it." She denied fiercely. "I'm just not good at this sort of thing."

"Talking?" Ivy asked.

"Yes."

"Well, I'm out of ideas," said Isabel who had momentarily stopped stuffing her face. "I say you eat Briellen. It will probably make you feel better."

* * *

A/N: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Done. It ended sharply, but otherwise it was going to go on forever. R&R MY FRIENDS. Cause you're the only ones who read this story.

NEXT CHAPTER IS THE WEEKEND.

Finally.

Jeez.

xoxo


	3. Passion Grows

The week had been and passed before any of the girls could blink an eyelid. Homework and essays were being vicariously handed out to unwilling students, all due in the next couple of weeks. The seven however, deemed this uninteresting and with plenty of time to spare – quickly forgot about it.

With Hogsmeade weekend quickly approaching and the skies blue for Quiddich training, things were looking up. After a particularly good breakfast they bade goodbye to TD and Isabel who departed to detention and make their way out the large oak front doors of the castle to start the walk down to Hogsmeade.

It passed quite quickly except for the slight problem when Briellen declared her urgent need to pee and they had to cover for her as she did her business behind a bush. Thankfully nobody was the wiser and they managed to get into Honeydukes before the mob of students had arrived.

Once inside, Nicole bashed her hand against the wall. The group looked at her as if she was crazy.

"What? It's gone dead! Stupid thing, it's no use at all." She bashed it again angrily.

Anie gave her a troubled expression and patted her on the head, "Just go get some chocolate, then we'll go to the Three Broomsticks. I'm sure a teacher will be in there, you can ask for a charm to bring the feeling back. In the meantime, just relax."

Nicole sighed and followed Nicola who had begun snatching handfuls of assorted sweets from the plastic boxes lined up against the back of the shop. "You are supposed to pay for them," Briellen pointed out softy.

"Yes, yes. But paying is for people who have money – and sadly I am not a part of that group yet."

"Neither. They should give us free chocolate." Ivy said mildly. Nicole agreed and stuck her hand into the plastic container, along with Briellen.

Remembering that Briellen hadn't washed her hands since the little episode in the bush the rest of the girls quickly withdrew their fingers and wiped them on their robes. Briellen reddened a little and scampered off to the toilet to scrub her hands while the rest of the group headed towards the Three Broomsticks after calling out to Briellen where they were going.

Upon entering the Three Broomsticks, their attention was immediately drawn to the back of the room, where a gloomy Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting. They found a table and called the pretty barmaid Rosmerta to get them a few butterbeers.

Sipping on her drink Ivy looked across the room. "He's not with Ginny."

"Maybe they had a row?" Anie surmised, trying vainly to remove the cap off her drink.

Nicola snorted, "I doubt it, did you see them this morn-"

Nicole kicked Nicola under the table and she choked on her butterbeer. "Uh, that is to say…they talked normally. So they seemed friendly."

Ivy was unaware of this going on under the table and fiddled with the lid of her butterbeer. "I really like him you know."

"Are you just telling us that because TD and Isabel aren't here to make fun of you?" Nicole asked curiously.

"Maybe," Ivy said lowering her eyes and shuffling in her seat. "Maybe I just wanted to tell you…"

Briellen snorted, "Yeah ok."

After sitting quietly sipping their drinks for some time, the girls were beginning to get bored. Ivy kept stalling them leaving and Anie thought it had something to do with Harry. But Hermione had magically moved a tree to cover them with her wand, and none of the girls could see Harry noticing Ivy any time soon.

"Let's just go," said Nicola impatiently. "I've drunk so much I think I am going to puke."

"It's not alcoholic," said Nicole who was reading the label.

"Yeah that's problem, too much non-alcohol makes me sick."

"Oh come on." Anie pushed herself away from the table and strode towards the door without waiting for the rest of them to follow. Once again they found themselves out on the street with nothing to do.

"Zonko's?" Suggested Ivy idly.

* * *

TD and Isabel watched the rest of the group walk away from them in the hall. Isabel sighed, "McGonagall is not going to like it if I'm late. I better go."

"Okay," said TD "I probably better get going too, Snape said to be there at nine."

Isabel glanced at the clock tower from out the window, "It's nearly nine now, come on."

They bade goodbye to each other at the dungeon door, TD slipped into the dark stone room that was Snape's office and waited there. Soon after he appeared in his black robes as usual.

"Tahenie," he drawled huskily, "thank you for coming. If you could step into the classroom I'll explain what we're going to be doing."

TD smiled and walked past him into the potions classroom. As she walked by she caught a whiff of his smell – he smelt like something erotic and mysterious… she had smelt it before…

"So," Snape said following her into the room and closing the door. "I suppose you read up on Skele-Gro like I instructed?"

"Yes sir," TD answered brightly, "I can remember the procedure off the top of my head."

"Such talent. Alright, fetch me the ingredients please."

TD walked to the storage cupboard and did just that. She began hastily lunging for the ingredients – wanting to please Snape.

_Lacewings, Krup tail… I forget what that last one was, uh. _She hesitated upon grabbing the last ingredient as she felt rather than saw Snape sidling up beside her. He reached past from behind her and picked up the right ingredient.

"This one…" he said softly, breathing on her neck.

"Yes…" She shivered as he breathed again, his lips barely touching the side of her neck. Turning to face him, she found her mouth caught up by his. She ran her free hand through his glossy hair, twisting the strands between her fingers. He pushed against her harder and she dropped the lacewings, which fell unnoticed to the floor while they continued kissing.

When at last he released her, TD stood very still, leaning against his shoulder. She felt safe in the circle of his arms. She said nothing, dazed and tremulous. Placing a finger on her chin he looked into her eyes, "I'm sorry…"

She flushed and did not know how to answer. "Don't be," she said at last. "I wanted it to happen as much as you…at least I think you did."

He wrapped his arms around her tighter and placed his chin on her head. "Yes, yes I did. But if anyone finds ou-"

"Hush," she said. "No one will. We will keep it a secret." She surprised him by kissing him again hard on the mouth.

They stayed like this for a few minutes, content with just holding each other when TD broke the silence. "So, the Skele-Gro?"

"An excuse." He laughed. "I didn't know what to do, but I wanted to spend more time with you. What else could I have done?"

"Clever plan."

"I should think so. It worked didn't it?"

She murmured her response and they sat down against the wall, arms still entwined. For another few minutes or it could have been hours, they sat like this.

Only the tolling of the bell outside brought them to their senses and they sat up numbly. "What time is it?" Asked TD, scratching her head.

Snape caught her ear with his mouth and kissed it, "Mmm, time for dinner I suppose. Your friends will be coming back shortly. As sad as this makes me feel, you should probably go."

Looking into his eyes once more, TD smiled. "I hope you have Skele-Gro already made to give to Madam Pomfrey."

"Yes I do. Now go and eat something," After a brief hug she ran from the room, he called after her. "You've got detention next week too Lucena! Don't forget!"

She grinned to herself as the walked to the great hall. The rest of the group had arrived and were handing out chocolate to Isabel who had given them money beforehand.

"Well, well," Said Nicola, who had just spotted TD. "Look who's decided to show up."

"Have a nice time in detention?" Ivy said, nudging TD who had just sat down next to her. "What did you get up to?"

TD's cheeks were flushed pink again and she grinned at her friends, "_Quite _a lot."

Briellen let out a whoop of laughter. "… You didn't!"

"I did."

The group all burst out into furious giggles, except for Isabel and Nicola who believed giggling was beyond them. "Details," they said.

TD recounted the story, and sat staring wistfully into oblivion as the rest of the group stared enviously at her.

"Man, I want a shag," said Isabel angrily. "But there's no one worth shagging in this hell-hole."

"Making if you restrained yourself from breaking people's noses, you might be able to get out of this "Hell-Hole" more often." Ivy said haughtily, she cut up her steak.

Isabel sneered, "Oh and you would know about men? What do you do, let Harry pet your bald head? I'm sure it's quite a turn on for him."

"For your information Isabel," said Ivy, looking across the table at the pale girl. "My hair was completely grown back by Madam Pomfrey this afternoon."

"What a shame. Harry won't be happy about that. I suppose that's why you were avoiding him just now?"

"No," said Ivy angrily. "He was with Ginny."

"Maybe you should burn her hair off?" Suggested Anie quietly.

"Not a good idea. Harry gets his jollies from that remember."

"Burn Ivy's hair off again?"

"Nope, I'll get another detention."

"CAN YOU GUYS SHUT UP? I'M TRYING TO FANTASIZE OVER HERE!" Yelled TD.

The hall came to an abrupt silence as everyone turned in their seats to look at TD. Soon enough a wave of nervous giggling broke out, and everyone turned back to their food.

"Maybe you should say that a little bit louder next time?" Nicole said, laughing at TD. "Or better yet, just send yourself a howler."

The group laughed as TD scowled, retrieved her _Quibbler_ from the bottom of her bag and hid her reddening face behind it.

* * *

The next few days passed without much hassle. The weather turned from pleasant to a heavy downpour of rain that clattered and pounded at the classroom windows making it very difficult for the school to concentrate on their work. This also meant it was impossible to hold Quiddich trials that weekend, as a dispirited Draco came to inform them early Sunday morning. They would be held next week if the weather cleared.

The girls used up the remainder of their Sunday as they struggled to keep up with the enormous amount of homework they were being set. It seemed that if their teachers found them wandering about the castle when they shouldn't be, instead of deducting points as they should – they set them lines to be handed in instead. As our girls aren't the quiet and obedient type, they had quite enough lines to last them three weekends let alone one Sunday.

In Charms they sat hunched around the daily prophet, reading loudly as the rest of the class practised their Silencing charms. The deafening cawing of the crows they were supposed to be silencing echoed throughout the room giving them the perfect cover to talk amongst themselves.

"I haven't seen anything about Voldemort in the papers lately," Nicole commented, scanning the Daily Prophet worriedly.

"Harry planned on not coming to school this year. He wanted to go and find Voldemort," Ivy said. "But Hermione convinced him to stay for the last year because she thought he might as well offer his protection here. Voldemort might also come to Hogwarts. Besides we have Dumbledore. It's safer here than anywhere else at the moment. I suppose he's still trying to learn all he can."

"But do we have Dumbledore? Where has he been lately I wonder?" TD looked up anxiously at Professor Flitwick. "He's been acting so strange…after that incident last year."

"What even happened?" Isabel asked Ivy, "Did you get any information out of Harry on that?"

"All I know is that…" She screwed up her face trying to remember, "There was some sort of accident. Dumbledore was hurt, and I think they thought he was dead. At least that's as much as I managed to get out of him."

"Not much then," said Nicola. "Its basically the same as what we got told."

"Well," concluded Nicole who began rolling up the newspaper. "Nothing interesting. We should get on with what we're trying to do." She waved her wand at the crow that was cawing angrily at them, "Silencio!"

Anie tutted at her impatiently, "Jab Nicole. Don't swish." Anie made a show of prodding her wand at the air and proclaiming, "Silencio!" The crow continued to open and close its beak, but did not make a sound.

TD rolled her eyes, "Silencio!" She jabbed at her crow so hard that she pushed it off the table.

Briellen made a squawk of protest and ran to retrieve the poor crow that was flapping its wings uselessly on the floor.

Isabel laughed and yelled, "Impedimenta!" at Briellen's protruding buttocks. There was a flash of light and Briellen went sliding across the classroom to crash headfirst into Professor Flitwick's pile of books. Flitwick also came tumbling down onto Briellen.

"Miss Shaw," he squeaked standing up and searching amongst the books for his glasses. "We are practising silencing charms! So how is it that you managed to slide the length of my classroom to topple over my books?"

"I don't know Sir." She said angrily, looking back at Isabel and Nicola who were doubled up laughing. They waved at her from the back of the room then continued laughing.

"Please don't give me detention…" She smiled at him sweetly and battered her eyelashes. He was once again on his pile of books, so Briellen did not need to stoop to run her fingers along the Charms Professor's arm.

Flitwick coloured and smiled back awkwardly, "Of course not Miss Shaw. Not your fault. No it wasn't." He muttered to himself distractedly in an undertone as he walked away.

He even forgot to give them homework.

* * *

A/N:

Oh yeah! Go TD go!

I thought I lost this. I uploaded it and saw that it only had 550words.. Hahaha, uploaded the wrong one because I saved it in the wrong place.

Silly me.

I hope you enjoyed. R&R

xoxoCole.


	4. Suprising New Developments

After this particularly uncomfortable incident in Charms the weather began to brighten up a little bit. Quiddich trials were on the next day and those of the group who actually played Quiddich were very excited and anxious.

Ivy was going to be trying out for the commentary, competing against Luna Lovegood of course. Nicole, Anie, Lucas Flint and a few third and fifth year Slytherins were trying out for the chasers position. While most troll-like masculine Slytherins, Nicola and Isabel were competing for the role of Beater. Draco was the only withstanding seeker, and as Captain ensured the position of his best friend and keeper Blaise Zabini.

TD and Briellen disliked flying very much, as they had both had similarly bad experiences on their first try in first year. Both incidents which strangely enough ended up in some sort of a duel – to this day it remains a mystery as great as the two of them.

Lessons that Friday were filled with even more boredom and restlessness than usual. After History of Magic, the group went down to the great hall to register their names for the following day's trials on the new notice that had been pinned up. Anie spotted Draco who was loafing around the Slytherin notice, sizing up all of those who dared to write their names down.

"Hey! Hey, Draco," She yelled waving an arm at him. "I haven't said congratulations yet for getting captain. Well done."

"Thanks Analise. Have you signed up yet? We've got a full load of new blood this year. Be sure you're on the list. We wouldn't wanna miss having you on the team."

Anie's already rosy cheeks turned brighter, "Of course not. Who wouldn't want someone who misses all the free shots?"

Draco laughed, "That was _one_ time. Ana, you need to stop focusing on the bad; c'mon you're a great player."

"Thanks," she laughed as Briellen made kissing noises in Anie's ear. "_Stop that."_ She hissed at Briellen and pulled her towards the table.

"Oh, great," drawled Isabel who had just entered alongside TD, "Lunch! What's on today?"

Nicole poked at Nicola as she attempted to sidle in beside her, "Same thing as usual. We've got sausages, sandwiches, fruit, juice and water. You know all the basics."

"Can't they ever like…make something better? Nicole you should get your mum to send you food, everyday. So I can eat it!"

"Oh yeah, because mum will love doing that. You eat enough of our food on the holidays."

"Whoa," said Briellen in a strangely awed voice. "Did you see that? Something …over there?"

Everyone turned around to look out the window at where she was pointing. "What are you talking about Briellen? I can't see anything," Ivy demanded.

"Me neither."

"Yeah, what are you on about?"

Briellen looked sightly mystified, "It's… I've seen that before."

"Briellen!" yelled Isabel, "What's wrong with you?"

Briellen started and gave Isabel a hurt look, "Nothing, I thought I saw…"

"What?" Prompted Nicola. "Spit it out then, bluey!"

"Nothing, never mind," she said looking crestfallen.

"Okay…" Said Nicole, "We've got defence against the dark arts now, who's gonna lend me their homework?"

Anie reached into her bag, "Here." She placed a 3ft long piece of parchment in front of Nicole. "I kind of went overboard about the defence mechanism of vampires."

"Really?" Nicole said shrewdly, "you could never have guessed." Nicole pulled the parchment towards her and began copying it down in a rush.

"You know Nicole," Isabel said. "You could just…not do it?"

"But she would get detention," Ivy protested.

"Yes, she would. And what an utterly pleasant disastrous fiasco that would be."

Nicole grinned at Isabel, "I like the way you think. But I've got way too much work to handle any detentions at the moment – no matter how much of an 'utterly pleasant disastrous fiasco' it is."

"Fah," Isabel muttered darkly, "You're no fun. Well, if Nicole isn't getting it on, who is? I need to live through someone, because I'm seriously lacking in the libido department."

Everyone looked with a knowing glance at TD, who began hastily shovelling boiled potatoes into her already full mouth, as if she hadn't eaten in weeks. Nobody was fooled – it hadn't happened yet.

"Be patient everyone," said Nicola over the plate of kippers. "It is only the start of term. Give the woman some time."

"Excuse me?"

"You are quite excused," said Nicola haughtily, "but before you go, please pass me that knife. Isabel has just stolen my pie and I wish to get it back."

Everyone looked from Nicola, to the knife, to Isabel, to TD then back to Nicola again.

"With force," she added.

"Yeah, I'm taking the knife with me. Going to get a head start, need to pee."

"I'll come," Isabel said warily, staring at Nicola who was stroking her wand casually.

"That's probably a good idea," TD observed.

A few minutes passed and the girls began getting tired of poking fun at first years. "Probably time to go," Ivy gave a huge dejected sigh.

"But," said Anie, "You know how it pains me to stand. Yet you impose this problem on me every lunchtime."

"Hey, don't blame me – blame yourself. It's your body."

"Oh believe me, I do" said Anie, with an angry glance at her legs.

Nicole stood and cracked her back, everyone winced. Nicole laughed at everyone, "I love making people wince. You remember last year, when Nicola yelled Voldemort at the hall. Oh, such panic."

"It was a beautiful thing to witness."

"Help me up."

Another few minutes passed before they had recovered from this, "Flaming dragon dung, we're going to be late if we don't hurry."

Finding themselves in Defence against the Dark arts, they were surprised to see the no one was in fact in the room. "You sure we have defence?" Nicole asked Ivy, who bit her lip before bringing her timetable out of her bag.

"Quite sure, Miss Corvin," said the thin air over by the blackboard. "And welcome to class, Miss Lam, Miss Eddington, Miss Shaw and Miss Lane. How kind of you to join us."

A few giggles exploded from the air to the right of Briellen, who – surprised – shrieked and jumped a foot.

"What's going on?" Anie demanded.

"They're testing the stuff from Fred and George's shop. He said so last lesson." Nicole said knowingly. She looked at where the thought Professor Fiennes' face might be. "Sorry we're late Sir, we ran into Professor Hagrid, he needed us to carry some pumpkins – much to Anie's distaste."

"Stupid weak Anie," Anie muttered for the umpteenth time, and Nicola proceeded to slap her – also for the umpteenth time, as she had sworn to do so if Anie continued to badmouth herself.

Professor Fiennes appeared, not taken aback at all by this violent outburst between the two friends – having seen it often. "I see, well take your seats. But first please take one of these New Invisibility Cloaks." Nicole then realised that she had been looking 2ft to his left the entire time while talking to him.

Thus followed an interesting lesson as they attempted to run around Professor Fiennes while he was talking and aim a well planned Hex at his backside. Much to the disappointment of many students, the rugged Fiennes had a knack of knowing when a curse was coming and could craftily dodge it and disarm the culprit in one flick of his wrist.

No one quite knew how he did it, which made it even more impressing. Some of the more block-headed Slytherins had quite trouble fitting their bulk under the cloaks and the rest of the class refused to help them, looking on with amused expressions.

"Oh, _puh-lease,_ it isn't that hard to get yourself under a cloak and disappear into thin air."

"More like fat air," commented Nicole wryly.

"Yeah the air does look a little obese over there." Nicola said.

"No, no. That's just Thick," said TD.

"Thick…meaning?" asked Briellen.

"Jatus. The little lump of a boy by the window. See the one now struggling with the fastening on his belt."

Jatus looked up and eyed where he thought they were distastefully, "You insult me why you hide? I'd like to see you show your face."

"Ah, yes. But we can't say the same for you I'm afraid – and watching you trying to put that on has turned me off."

"Like I'd try to turn you on," Jatus seethed, his round face turning an unpleasant colour very similar to beetroot.

The girls all burst out into laughter. As soon as it had started, laughter stopped and all girls stood, stared and abruptly walked away. "He is not worth our time."

"No. I agree."

"Apple?"

"Thankyou."

Not surprisingly Fiennes gave them extra homework at the end of class, to practise what he called Elementary Legimency. It was not like Legimency at all, Nicola had said. Instead of reading someone's thoughts, you were trying to feel the subtle change in the air, due to their presence. None of the class could understand why they were being taught this, but it was fun all the same.

* * *

"Finally!" Nicole proclaimed, walking out into the deserted hallway. "Time for bed, let's go. I thought this day would never end."

They had just been to the bathroom after dinner, and Nicole was looking forward to a good night's sleep.

"It hasn't yet," Isabel said, _Accio'_ing her broom. "We've still got some last minute practise before tomorrow's trials. Grab your broom, tell the others. I'll scout out for teachers and I'll meet you out at the pitch."

"Isabel, its 6:30…and it's full dark outside."

"I know, look don't worry about it. We've done this plenty of times, the pitch doesn't get watched and as long as we lay low – no one will notice."

Without further ado she whipped out her broom, grinned back at her friend and launched herself out the nearest open window.

Nicole flailed her hands in dismay. "Why do I even bother?" She managed to get back to the common room unhindered, but found no sign of any of the others.

That's weird, she thought, walking upstairs to her dormitory to get her broom. Nicola, TD and Ivy were all standing about whispering frantically.

"What's going on?"

Nicola started, and spun around to face Nicole. "Oh, hi. Briellen ran off with Ron. And Analise… is with Draco. In his dormitory."

TD and Ivy made suspicious eyebrow movements.

"_In_ his dormitory?" Nicole asked. "What? Why?"

"We think, they're kissing." TD nudged Ivy with her elbow. "But I don't know. All we know is that, Anie went in there to get something from Blaise, but Blaise was in the hallway when I went out to see where you and Isabel were."

"I was in the bathro-"

"Not the point," Ivy cut her off sharply. "She's been in there for half an hour. And … we have no idea what is going on. The door is locked."

Nicola shrugged, "Well I did see his dad today. He came in to the school."

"Wasn't he in prison?" TD asked.

"Yeah, but Briellen and I went to talk to Malfoy about trials, and well – I think it was his dad. He was standing there, and they were gesturing at each other. He had this long hair, kind of sexy. "

Ivy gaped at her, "That is so… weird."

Nicola folded her arms across her chest, "It is not, many mature age men are sexy."

"Not that, I mean, it's weird he would even risk showing up here. He's got guts." Ivy looked thoughtful. "Could it have something to do with Voldemort do you think?"

"He sure ran off in a hurry though, whoever he was."

TD giggled, "He saw you and ran. Then again, who wouldn't?"

Nicola punched her. "You shut up. I'm going to spy on Anie." She stopped and looked back at them. "Come to think of it, she did go in there…after I told her about seeing Big Malfoy running around."

Nicola seemed to think twice about going after Anie, but thought better of it and proceeded to look through the keyhole.

"Isabel's out on the pitch, I've got to go meet her. You guys wanna come?"

Ivy tugged at Nicole's sleeve, "Should we tell Dumbledore?"

"Uh, no. Because then Isabel would get detention and so would I. Then we wouldn't be able to go to the trials – what's wrong with you?"

"No you idiot, I mean about Lucius Malfoy…If he really was here, Dumbledore would want to know."

"And Snape," added TD.

"What are we, Dumbledore's Witches? No, we don't know anything for sure. Best to keep it quiet and see what Anie finds out."

Nicola made a grunting noise from the landing above their heads, "By the looks of this, Anie is finding out a lot. More about the back of Draco's throat than Lucius though." She whispered.

Ivy and TD both made squeaking noises and darted off to look though the keyhole as well.

"Well, have fun. I have to go to training now." Nicole grabbed her broom and headed out the painting hole. She would have flung herself out a window like Isabel except for the slight problem of the Slytherin Common room being a Dungeon and not exactly near any windows.

So she tucked herself and her broom out of sight with the invisibility cloak she had "borrowed" today from Fiennes and made her way to the front doors. She had almost made it there when she was surprised by a figure walking in the shadows.

It was none other than Fiennes himself, and for a moment Nicole could have sworn that he looked right at her. The moment passed however and Fiennes continued humming a song to himself and walked in the direction of the great hall.

Thankful for this stroke of luck, Nicole did not hesitate any longer and left for the pitch. Isabel greeted her from the darkness.

"What took you so long, I couldn't get the crate, so we're gonna have to make do with this." She took out a soccer ball, cricket ball and a cricket bat. "Thank the lord for Muggleborns."

"Alright I'll throw and you hit, aim for the hoops. I'll Accio them back."

They took turns helping each other hone their skills, first passing then hitting and back to shooting and aiming. For a few hours they did this until the sun began to creep around the edges of the hills.

"We should go to sleep. Trials are so soon… and we should be well rested."

"Good job tonight," Isabel said high fiving Nicole. (Very childish, but, you know – 'whatevzz')

"Yeah I hope everyone else did as well, you know Anie with Draco and Briellen with Ron." Nicole picked up all the balls they had left scattered around the pitch and began walking back up the hill to the castle.

"Oh yes. We better be getting details when we wake up. If not, they'll find I'm going to become very, unsociable."

* * *

A:N/

I'm so sorry guys; I wrote so much and without thinking that I just let the story flow.

BUT AS YOU CAN TELL… TRIALS ARE COMING :D

So…

Don't kill me.

They're soon, don't worry.

Don't worry Anie, I'm doing a flashback sequence to your kissing moment, I wanted to try that out.

Briellen, nothing happened with you and Ron, sorry honey.

Nic, I promised you Lucius, and Lucius you will get! Soon…enough.

And as for TD and Snape and the whole 'hasn't had sex' thing, I'm sorry.

You went, you saw; you didn't quite conquer.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, more to come soon.

colexox


	5. All sorts of Balls

After a few short hours of sleep, the girls were once again down in the great hall at a very early hour. Even those who were not in fact hopefuls to be a part of the team were eating breakfast with those who were.

Walking out onto the pitch, the girls spotted Draco straight away. Anie; who immediately turned bright red, sprinted off in the other direction. Nicole shouldered her broom and led the pack.

Draco smiled, "Here early girls? Very good."

TD, Briellen and Ivy wished the rest good luck and walked off the pitch to take their place in the stands.

"Quite a few. There were a few first years who tried to sign up, but I managed to persuade them otherwise." He paused and looked around, "Where's Analise?"

"She's always nervous before flying, but you know – she'll come around." Isabel said, listlessly waving her hand.

He fidgeted with his robe and stammered out, "She didn't…say anything? I mean…like about…well, is she okay?"

Nicola smiled, "I want to do your dad."

"Huh?!"

Isabel winked, "Me also. That would be highly enjoyable."

"Hey, fuck off! He's mine. You tell your dad ok Draco." Nicola said, shoving Isabel to the floor.

He turned and grimaced, "I'll let him know."

Suddenly there was a flash of light and Nicola was sent hurling through the air. As Nicole instinctively ran after the flying girl, there was a chuckle from the floor. "No one…pushes, Isabel." She snarled, getting up and brushing off her robes.

Draco was about to mention that Nicola did in fact push her and that sending her hurling through the air was not going to change that; but he thought better of it. Anie ran onto the pitch at that moment, pulling up her pants as she ran. "The crowds are coming!!"

"Anie, what…what were you doing?" said Nicole. She had just reappeared at Draco's side, clutching Nicola from the front of her robes to hold her up.

Anie flinched away from Draco's helpful hand, "I was, well let's just say my stomach gets a bit upset before trials. But that's not the point. The crowds are a-gatherin'"

Draco regrettably moved away from Anie and began to direct the mass of students. "Alright we'll have the keepers first, then chasers and beats. Everyone else, please take a seat and wait your turn. Keepers forward." He turned to the girls. "Analise, Nicole help me throw some shots at them."

Blaise, a fourth year and a fifth year approached the pitch nervously. Blaise went first and saved five of the five Anie sent his way. The fourth year saved a total of three, and the fifth year managed four before hitting the inner ring and knocking himself out.

"Alright Blaise, you're in mate. Welcome back to the team. I hope Analise didn't give you easy ones." Draco looked at Anie and skeptically narrowed his eyes.

"Nah you know her mate, she's a brilliant scorer." Blaise punched his friend in the arm. "Aren't you Anie?" He grabbed her in a hug and tousled her hair. Anie laughed and pushed him away. Draco's scowl deepened.

Being in a bad mood, Draco whipped out his wand and moved the unconscious blond boy roughly into a pile of sand. "Chasers," he yelled angrily.

Anie, Nicole and a bunch of youngsters took to the air with a bemused glance at Draco's facial expression. There were also a few boys from their own year including Lucas Flint, younger brother of Marcus and Kraven Baldwin, a handsome exchange student from a magic school in Germany. His accent was thick and he often spoke broken English.

As they flew around Draco yelled instructions up at them. They were to throw five shots each and then once that was done, they were to do a relay and demonstrate the power in their long throws. Anie was up first and she flew straight for the goal post, getting in her five shots easily. She swung her golden hair over her shoulder and high-fived Nicole on the way back. Draco below was determinedly avoiding her gave, but even he couldn't keep the expression of admiration off his face.

Nicole took a different approach. "Sorry Blaise," she muttered. Grabbing the quaffle, Nicole avoided the usurping kicks of the other chaser hopefuls and flew straight for Blaise, elbowing him in the face and scoring. She scored a further four times, and looked down to see Draco torn between approval and fear.

They both sat back on their brooms and watched the rest of the group battle it out with Blaise. They didn't envy them, but with their extraordinary Quiddich talent, battling it out with Blaise doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Next was the relay. To the girls it seemed it was incredibly easy whereas the majority of the hopefuls had severe trouble with it.

When the group eventually returned to the ground Draco called, "Analise Eddington, Nicole Corvin and Kraven Baldwin. Congratulations."

Anie and Nicole high-fived again, and howled as their already stiff hands rung with pain.

"Beaters!" called Draco – and his face fell in dismay as a bunch of block headed Slytherins took to the air, among them the slight and pale skinned dark haired Isabel, and the green eyed and long haired Nicola.

Nicola whispered to Isabel. "Hey…can we hit a bludger at Anie and TD, they were being kind of rude today."

"Yeah," Isabel agreed in a rush, "When Draco's not watching of course."

They were directed to aim at the hoops, from various intervals throughout the field to demonstrate their aim and strength. The block headed Slytherins had no problem with strength, but their aim was a little off.

Once again the blond haired and unconscious Keeper tryout was given a blow to the head, as an off course bludger made its mark in his temple.

Isabel and Nicola demonstrated both incredible strength and precise aim. Especially Nicola, who hit a bludger at Anie, hitting her in the mouth and throwing her backwards off the stands. When questioned about this later by Madam Pomfrey, Nicola swore she was aiming for one of the golden hoops.

Isabel also, devoid of a bludger continually thwacked TD with her bat, apparently under a confounding charm. TD didn't look so happy about it, especially after the seventy-sixth hit. Briellen was feeling happy that she was being left out of this torturing session, before Isabel (who was tired of hitting an unconscious TD) poked her wand, with considerable force into Briellen's eye.

Draco was _not_ amused, but granted them entry to the Slytherin team nonetheless.

Dinner was an interesting event, as the girls wished to recount their perspective of the trials again and again through mouths of mashed potato. Professor McGonagall was giving them all tight lipped stares from the staff's table, but this did not stem the flow of enthusiasm bubbling out from the seven girls. Nor Ivy, the one she had appointed co-commentator beside Luna.

* * *

When the girls were once again in the common room, the need to discuss the past few days events arose quickly. 

"So," said Nicola "Anie, what happened between you and Malfoy?"

Anie was in the process of relaxing on the arm chair when she gave a start as if poked rather sharply in the backside with a pin. "Not here," she hissed, pulling Nic and TD toward their dormitory. "If you must know, come on."

The rest of the group ignored the fact that it seemed as if Anie didn't wish to share it with them and followed anyway. Anie was sitting on the sill, her face impassive.

"I went in to see Blaise about the Potions homework, and well I found Draco instead."

"I'm sure you did," said Briellen suggestively.

"Well," continued Anie, getting up from the sill and slumping on her bed. "It's not that interesting or romantic…really"

* * *

"Oh, Draco," said Anie. "I wasn't thinking – I'm sorry. I was looking for Blaise and…I'll just go." She flushed terribly and fumbled with the door handle.

Draco who was in the middle of getting dressed for bed – was standing in his boxers looking relatively amused. "It's alright, Ana. Did you need help with something?

"Yeah; I need help with the penis essay – I mean POTIONS…potions essay." _Oh God,_ she thought to herself _I'm such an idiot._

Draco let out a hearty laugh, "It's not that hard. I mean you know…the potions essay."

"Yeah," Anie mumbled, while Draco was mentally slapping himself. "Well I've been having trouble with my potion and TD was too busy with her own when I asked her…"

Draco had managed to make his was across the room to her, "And?" he prompted.

"Well…mine has a funny colour to it," she brought out the flash of ice blue liquid. "It's meant to be quite darker than this, and it smells wrong."

She struggled with the cork and Draco tried to help her. She flinched at the touch of his hand but let him help her none the less. With a loud sucking sound, they pulled the cork from the flask so quickly that the contents fell onto Draco's boxers.

He yelled and jumped about. "It STINGS! Get it off!"

"HOLD STILL" She yelled and pulled out her wand. "Diffindo!"

Draco gave a sigh of relief as the offending shorts well to the floor in tatters. He and Anie stood for a moment relieved that the problem has been solved – when it suddenly dawned on them that Draco was standing naked in front of her.

"Obh ooh." She cried, clapping her hands over her eyes, "I'm so sorry."

Draco did not seem daunted by this sudden appearance of his wand, instead he said. "You did what I would not dare to have done."

"Well, if you would just show me to the door, I could rectify that by leaving."

"Sorry," he said, taking her hands away from her face. "I can't do that."

She glanced down quickly…_Oh...my!_

Draco smiled and kissed Anie lightly and led her over to the bed. Anie, who was caught up in the making out moment, failed to notice that Nicola had crept in the room.

Draco surfaced and gasped, "Nicola…what? Get out!"

"I can't see anything, not looking at anything."

Anie whipped her head around and saw Nicola, who was indeed wandering around the room with her eyes shut. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but… you know. I lost my tie, and... You guys weren't, uh?" She peeked through her fingers. "Ew."

"No…we weren't."

"I am so sorry to _hear_ that."

"Nic, would you just get out of here." Anie said exasperatedly. Draco threw her a look and retreated modestly under the bedclothes.

"I found my tie! See," She held it up, and looked at them. Quickly she hid her face again. "I'm going, I'm going."

* * *

"So, basically…Nicola ruined it?" Ivy asked.

Anie nodded, "if she hadn't walked in when she did… you know."

"Well that's depressing, did you leave after that?" Isabel said.

"Pretty much."

TD gave Anie a puzzled look, "You never asked me to help you with your potion."

Anie turned red, "I figured…you know."

The rest of the girls threw each other mischievous looks, and Anie threw pillows at them. "You guys… I'm going to sleep. Go away."

They left her alone, still laughing, "We'll send Draco in." Ivy giggled.

And once again the girls found themselves in the common room with nothing to do. TD decided it was time to get ahead on her homework. Briellen agreed, and began to copy Anie's work. Nicola was too smart for that and used Legimency instead to get the answers out of Briellen – who was trying to force Nicola out of her mind.

"Well, aren't you guys a bunch of fun tonight?" Said Isabel, "So what about it Nicole…want to go do something. Like…make the house elves make us food or something?"

"Nah thanks." Nicole said, waving a hand and walking out the portrait hole, "I've been invited to this new Wizarding TV show, Dancing with the Squids. I'm off to practice with Olivia."

"Olivia," Ivy piped up from behind her newspaper. "Who's that?"

"Oh, the squid. She's really cool."

Briellen blanched, "She groped me. AND SHE'S A SHE."

"You are quite gropeable Briellen," said TD, reaching over to stroke Briellen's leg.

"As utterly exciting as this is my friends," said Isabel angrily. "I'm off to greener pastures. House elves here I come." And with that she walked out the door in pursuit of the food.

Nicola looked up, "Did she go to kitchens?"

"Yeah."

Nicola quickly hasted after her yelling; "HEY BITCH! SAVE SOME FOR ME YOU FATASS." Next came the inevitable flash of light and bang, as Nicola was thrown into a case of armour.

"STOP BEING A FAG, OR ONE DAY IT WILL BE AVADA KEDAVRA!" Isabel's voice rang clearly throughout the dungeons, and peals of laughter were heard right through the hall until eventually put to a stop by one glance from the pride-wounded Nicola.

"IF I WASN'T SUCH A NICE PERSON YOU WOULD ALREADY BE DEAD…"

Their happily bickering voices faded into the background. "Well," said Nicole, breaking the silence. "Time for me to go." And she exited the common room.

Those left, looked at each other knowledgably.

It had been a long day.

* * *

HAHA

guess who remembered the page breaks.

yeah ok

ITS UP

NOW I CANT BE KILLED

HARRY POTTER TOMORROW

YAYAYAYA

YAYAYA

YAYAYA

xo

cole


	6. The Uses Of a Mouth

"Aim a little higher," Briellen said. She grasped TD's hand and pointed her wand arm further skyward.

They were in Charms again, busy revising for their backup practical O.W.L exam. Last year exams had been cancelled due to Dumbledore's accident and most other subjects had used prior knowledge of the student's exam records in all classes. Charms and Defence against the Dark Arts were the only two which did not have these records in all classes.

Naturally DADA was re-done as their teacher changed yearly, but the Charms professor had no reason as to why his records were not completed.

Nicola remarked it was because he found it troublesome to reach the box.

Ivy sympathized with him.

The new work they were being set for their chosen courses really tested their patience. Nicole had chosen to peruse a career in magical beasts and was often found pouring over large volumes about lethifolds, unicorns and winged beings.

Isabel had chosen no set career path but very much enjoyed history of magic and being the one in DADA who everyone knew and feared. She often lived a care-free life; 'winging it' was her favourite expression and often led to thoughts about chicken. This was not uncommon.

Nicola and Isabel were of one mind. Eat well. East fast. Eat now. Nicola wished once to become Minister of Magic. Anie had told her that she needed to work hard at subjects she did not care for, and help manage the many floors of the M.O.M. Nicola cut her off quickly retorting that she had been joking and her real love was for runes and cursed castles.

Anie however was a practical witch and her powers lay within her strength to think logically. She wanted to become a healer or something of the sort, her helping hand and clever eye, precisely seeing problems and her logical nature helping her solve them.

After a small lunch, the group separated as their chosen subjects. Nicole, Isabel, Nicola and Anie wandered down to Hagrid's hut for Care of Magical Creatures. The trip was not silent, and much grumbling was heard from Isabel and Nicola. Anie and Nicole however bounded forward with delight and anticipation of the creatures they were to be studying.

Hagrid spotted them across the grounds and bellowed, "Hurry up, would yeh?"

"Yeah, yeah" muttered Isabel under her breath, She was not the best athlete and along with the Nicola the rocky slopes of Hogwarts were proving to be an issue.

Nicole whipped out her wand and lifted Isabel into the air, moving her quickly to outside Hagrid's hut. They stumbled after her, hearing Isabel yell back, "NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING, BUT YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN ME SOME WARNING!"

Arriving at Hagrid's hut and slightly out of breath, Nicole failed to notice the pen that had been erected in the middle of the clearing. All at once she was engulfed in furry over-grown Ferret type creatures, exclaiming over her in deep voices.

"Stupid human, I'll stick my fucking whiskers in your nostrils. Fat beast. Are you fucking retarded?" said a brown one close to her face.

The white ferret over by her foot gave a contemptuous snort, "Get the fuck out, dickhead. God, what an idiot. Fucker. Die. Dumbass."

"Jarvey's!" said Hagrid proudly. "Big ferret creatures. Not the brightest of sorts though. Yeh can catch them insultin' yeh often."

"You think?" Said Nicole, as she was lifted out of the enclosure by the scruff of the neck by Hagrid.

Thus followed an interesting lesson, "I'm becoming fond of the little creatures," said Nicola happily prodding one with her wand and setting it on fire.

"They resemble you closely," said Isabel.

Nicola smiled sweetly, "Why thank you."

Hagrid was too engrossed in the rarity of the creatures that he failed to notice they gave off a distinctly unpleasant temperament. Nicole wandered off to the lake for more practice time with Olivia and did not participate in the lesson any more. Anie thought that she had taken offence to the little weasels.

Anyway, the class was over and everyone left.

* * *

They stepped into Transfiguration for the last lesson of the day. They were anxious to see that their new teacher – of whom people were seen whispering about in a fashion not much different to when Fiennes first started. 

McGonagall had taken over as Headmistress of Hogwarts as it was widely known that Dumbledore was too ill to do much these days. In fact he had rarely been seen since the start of term feast.

The girls congregated into a group in this familiar subject, as it was one of the four subjects that they shared. Their teacher stood with his back towards them, wearing a pinstriped shirt and muggle office pants – rather than the widely common robes. He was writing up a days work on the blackboard before someone coughed in the class to get his attention.

His hand stilled and he pointed his wand over his shoulder at Michal Corner, a Ravenclaw and the one who had disrupted. "Yes, Mr. Corner?" he asked in a crisp voice.

"Uh," Corner stammered, "We've been sitting here for fifteen minutes."

"You object you do, Mr. Corner?" the Professor said sharply.

"Well, said Corner, hesitating obviously nervous.

The Professor turned, "Then I suggest you speak up." His eyes were a sharp icy blue and his locked chiseled jaw, gave him a fearsome air of power. He laughed suddenly and all the muscles in his jaw relaxed making his intimidating demeanor melt away into a surprisingly beautiful man.

He flicked his hand at the board and, _'Professor Hughes'_ appeared in a flourished script. "Welcome" he boomed happily, "to sixth year transfiguration. I am Professor Hughes. Note the 'e' in Hughes; it's really annoying actually when people spell it wrong. I am pleased indeed to make your acquaintance. Professor Snape notified me that he shall be making a visit this lesson to see how I am fitting in, so I expect you all to be working hard."

There were a few murmurs in response, Td's head snapped up at the mention of Snape and smiled happily at Hughes, who was taken by surprise. He smiled back and turned again to write more on the board.

The girls in the class were immediately smitten by his excellent glutes. Ivy turned to Briellen to comment on this when Briellen let out a high pitched squeal.

The class whipped around in time to see a long and fleshy coloured tentacle, emerging from the window to wrap itself around Briellen and lovingly drag her out.

Hughes gave a yell and whipped out his wand, but Nicole stayed his hand. "Never mind Sir, Olivia will bring her back later."

"Olivia?" He asked incredulously, still looking out the window, as Briellen's screams faded away into the distance.

"Don't ask"

"Carry on." Said a Ravenclaw, and the class continued as if nothing had happened.

There came a time in the lesson when Hughes was leaning over TD's desk. Nicole clutched at his arm for attention, "Come and look at my work, Sir! I promise it's really good." She tried to yank him away from TD, whom he was leaning very close to – when a small noise of protest came from the door.

Snape and Fiennes stood there, both white and livid, appearing as though they would like to hit someone.

Snape glanced away for a moment and sounding as if he was trying to restrain himself said, "Might I have a word, David?"

"Of course Severus," Said Hughes clearly affronted.

They left the room, Snape giving TD a fleeting glance and Fiennes making a face like a wounded animal.

Incoherent shouting's were heard from down the corridor, but phrases like; "A STUDENT?" and "YOU HAVE THE NERVE…" were clearly amplified through the stone corridors.

Isabel gave a low whistle, "What a fox!"

The silence was broken with a mass of approving voices and giggles. Silence fell again and a distant squeal followed with a roar and a splash came in from through the open window.

All three of the Professors walked through the corridor apparently at an ease. Snape barked at TD not to forget her detention and Fiennes veered Nicole to the side of the room for a hushed argument, resolving in Nicole storming back to her seat, close to tears.

When asked what they discussed, she shook her mass of golden brown tresses about her head like a curtain and refused to answer.

At dinner both TD and Nicole were sullen and quiet, retreating to their dormitories quite early.

Depressed and angry by their friend's sudden mood swings, the group returned to their Non-verbal Charms practice. Nicola was angered further by this and she claimed that her way to express that was by hexing heedless students as they stumbled through the portrait hole.

It was very late when Briellen got back, and Nicola did not notice her, as her hair was dark brown with water, her clothes sopping wet and sporting a large black eye. Surprisingly she seemed alight with happiness, this ended when she too, was unfortunately hexed.

* * *

Saturday dawned, bright and full of sunshine and the girls were awoken from a deep sleep. After a quick breakfast Nicole and TD wandered off each to do separate detentions for Fiennes and Snape. Anie in turn scampered off to spend the day with Draco. 

That left Ivy, Briellen, Nicola and Isabel to go to Hogsmeade.

"Seems like we've had a lot of Hogsmeade weekends lately. Even with the deaths so close to here," commented Briellen airily.

Ivy nodded, "It's Halloween in two weeks or so. We've been at school for a month and a bit. So long already."

Isabel jumped around with Nicola in delight at the mention of Halloween. "That means a feast! And Quiddich! FINALLY A GAME" And they flew into a stream of happy screaming all the way to Hogsmeade.

Upon arriving, they headed straight for Zonko's, en route via the Shrieking Shack (Ivy's bright idea.). Wandering around the back areas of houses would normally seem like a bad idea, but the group heedless of this followed her mindlessly.

"Oh, what have we here," exclaimed Ivy with feigned surprise. "Harry Potter? What a surprise."

Briellen groaned when she spotted Ron, thinking to run away if only to avoid coming face to face.

A sick feeling enveloped them. Chilling and cold to the bone they moved toward where the trio was standing. A mist settled down upon the group and they shuddered as a whole, retreating with their backs pressed against a large towering oak.

"Dementor," breathed Harry, squinting around him.

Immediately, one swooped down upon them, Briellen brandished her wand fearfully, "Expecto patronum!"

A light sprung forth from her wand, settling into the small shape of a standing meerkat; with its ears pricked forward. When the meerkat spied the dementor, it scratched its whiskers and promptly turned tail and fled. Briellen followed suit and yelled at her Patronus to wait up for her.

Ivy tried to scoff in the gloom, but the dementor was getting so close now, all she managed was a tiresome 'oomph' sound. She pulled her wand out next, "I'll show you how it's done. TIGER PATRONUS, I CHOOSE YOU!"

Despite the chilling atmosphere, even Harry managed to snort, "Pokemon?"

A pair of red glowing eyes appeared out of the gloom, followed by a sickly pale white face and body - robed in a cape that seemed to be made of darkness itself. Voldemort stepped forward, his snake like nose slits appeared to draw in the mist.

"Even I know the incantation, Miss Lam…" he drawled, his bony yew wand held aloft.

"And I know this one!" said Harry dramatically, "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Voldemort deflected it with a sweeping gesture. "Oh, Potter. I am so sick of your futile attempts to thwart me. Don't pester me anymore boy. I'm just trying to kill some pathetic muggles…but now that I am here, I can see different prospects."

He made sexy glowing red eyes at Isabel.

Isabel whipped her hair out of her face. "Well, well. If you aren't the most, if to say the least."

A calculating expression came over Voldemorts face before he turned and pointed into the distance yelling, "Hey, look at that dog over there!"

Everyone turned, expecting to see the phenomenal sight of a dog, but there was nothing there! When they all turned back, they managed to catch a glimpse of Voldemort gliding away without much effort, clutching Isabel to his chest.

Voldemort made for the shrieking shack, thinking only to get her alone. Upon entering the room, her eyes narrowed on him, studying his face. He thought she was trying to read his mind. But he had his thoughts naturally blocked, probably for the best.

He came closer and she watched his face closely, waiting for her to flinch back or resist. She did not. He thought, how could be he so turned on by a woman he had every reason to hate was beyond him.

He slammed her against the wall, and she wasn't sure whether she wanted to push him away or pull him closer. God, the feel of his mouth on her neck…gentle seduction. Her lips slid over his jaw, to his mouth and he kissed her then.

Her legs straddled his, and one of his hands reached up behind her to bunch her skirts up around her hips.

She couldn't see him beyond her dark hair, but she could feel his flesh, bare against hers. He kissed her like a devoted slave, asking, pleasing, utterly selfless. She stood and let her clothes fall at a pool at her feet.

He wanted to devour her, his breathing quickened. He dropped to his knees and kissed her stomach. She sighed. Hell, every taste was sending shock waves jolting through her entire body.

Then, suddenly, she shoved him away with so much force he skidded across the floor against the bed. She followed him, looking hungry. "Get that robe off," she whispered.

And he did, quickly, had them off before she reached him. It was a good thing too, because she mounted him immediately. Her pace slowed, her movements becoming languid and almost… tender. Definitely needy.

She liked his mouth, he could tell, so he kept using it, until she was crying out. Her head fell backward, and her hands clutched at his head as he made her entire body shiver and quake.

He let his head slump to the side, and his eyes closed to mere slits. She didn't pull away, only stared into his barely open eyes as she lowered her mouth to his and kissed him. They lay entwined among the sheets of the only bed in this small shack for hours afterward, until the bitter cold gave way to the heat of their bodies, still pressed against each others.

* * *

Afterwards when by himself, Voldemort sighed, he felt that, the way she moved… He closed his eyes, remembering everything that had happened between them the night before. She'd fed from him as if he was prey, and she was a hunter. He had never had sex that intense. Never. And in spite of everything, he wanted her again.

* * *

A:N/

Oh, God.

Voldy, you turn me on so.

DAMN YOU STORY ISABEL

DAMN YOUUUU

I'll make Nicole and TD explain what happened in their detentions in a later chapter.

ily all

xo cole


	7. Revolutions

_Oh, the seventh chapter._

_**Seven.**_

_What a special number._

_Could I have a collective sigh please?_

…

_Aw_

_To you, my dear readers and friends – I dedicate this chapter_.

_Happy reading._

* * *

"I'm so sick of being left behind… another Saturday wasted," sighed TD. She was, once again watching the group file away from them into Hogsmeade, with one person standing by her side. Silently she thanked God that it wasn't Isabel, as she had no wish to face her after the horrendous bashing she had received at the Quiddich Trials.

Nicole pushed open their common room door and glanced around. "Oh well. There's no one here, want to practice non-verbal Charms?"

TD shrugged, "I won't get much done. I am _really_ bad at non-verbal. I don't get the whole mind-voice thing, especially in Charms, I don't know why."

"Why don't you try some simple ones first?" Nicole brandished her wand and a cushion from one of the squashy arm-chairs soared above their heads.

TD followed suit and soon they had a various umber of items floating above the room. Nicole thought it must look odd, two girls with nothing better to do than levitate the entire contents of their common room.

The girls blanched as a grunt and a loud thud echoed through the room from behind them. They spun around surprised to see Snape sitting on the floor. He had obviously stridden into the room quickly and smashed into one of the many floating shelves and chairs.

"You should really notify people of your doings in here, if only to avoid a lawsuit." He stood tight-lipped and brushed his robes from the imaginary dust that, to him, had settled upon them. "I expected you in detention half an hour ago, Lucena."

She scowled, crossed her arms and quickly left the room. He turned then on Nicole with a sneer, "and I expect Professor Fiennes, is looking for you also." He gathered his dark robes about him and gracefully stepped from the room.

Nicole sighed and rubbed her eyes, _Curse our bloody memory. _She relaxed the grip on her wand and with a crash, let everything fall to the floor in a tumbling mass. She was getting ready to leave before Snape called back from the corridor.

"I expect the common room to be orderly before you leave, Corvin"

* * *

TD stared at the desk, her head resting on a balled fist. Every minute or two, her concentration would begin to ebb away slowly, her head would slip from her hand and with a startled jerk she would lift it up again. Glancing up once again, she hoped that Snape had not noticed her momentary lapse in composure.

Snape did not notice however, and continued humming "Islands in the Stream" under his breath while marking test papers. Occasionally he would glance up at the clock; but not at her.

TD was beginning to tire of this game, and lifted her head to look at him squarely. It was annoying, really, to be treated this way when it was his petty jealousy that was the problem, not her. She crossed her legs, and continued to stare at him.

Minutes passed by and still TD refused to let her gaze drop. The sun moved across the clouds and darkened Snape's features, yet she did not let it fall. The curve of his nose and the soft darkness of his hair became darker and more sullen still. She thought he appeared worn and tired, sighing as he turned the pages before him. His humming softened until it was barely audible.

She could stand it no longer.

"What is wrong with you?" her voice sounded sharp across the room.

He did not flinch, but looked up slowly – running a tired hand through his hair. "I don't know…I don't know." He stood and turned his back on her. "I am sorry. Just…leave."

TD looked at him, surprised and angry as she was; she could not help feeling a pity and a longing for him. She stood and took a few tentative steps forwards. "Sev, I…"

"Leave," he insisted, and the barest trace of the sour-faced teacher she had known for years came back to him… Nonetheless, he just sounded…tired. Still he faced the wall, TD stood for a few moments longer before it became apparent to her that he was not going to move.

She swallowed her pride and quickly left the room. He had been so angry when Hughes was standing over her. He had yelled and wound himself up. But now, he seemed so…uninterested.

His eyes had returned to their previous emptiness and did not twinkle. They had spent every spare moment in the past few weeks wrapped in each others arms, but they had spent the last few minutes avoiding each others gaze.

She skidded to a half in front of a large woven tapestry. Wiping tears from her eyes, she looked around herself fearfully. "No one here," she said to the emptiness, and sunk to the floor.

* * *

Nicole walked into the room and sat staring out the window, her eyes unseeing. Fiennes entered the room slowly after her and sat at the front, avoiding her gaze also. The student, who he had taken an immediate liking to, now sat and ignored him.

Minutes ticked by gradually, the only noise was the distant splash of the students frolicking in the lake with Olivia.

He coughed and with a teeth grinding sound of metal against stone, he withdrew his chair from the table. "You know, I presume why you are here?"

She did not answer.

"Miss Corvin?" he insisted.

"I don't know what you have against me."

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not. I'm ignoring you," she snapped.

Silence fell across them again and they both shifted uncomfortably.

"Well…" he said as his blue eyes flickered. "Fine," he snapped finally folding his arms across his chest in a likeness of her.

Nicole struggled to free her foot from the strap of her bag, ready to boil to the brim. A bird sat on the windowsill and trilled away unknowing of the mounting tension in the room.

"Sir," she said softly, as if the pitch of her voice would calm his wrath. He but ignored her. "I'm so sick of this," she muttered. Nicole then swung her legs out from under the desk and picked up her bag.

Fiennes glared at her, "Sit down," he growled.

She didn't stop packing up," Why?"

"Because I am your teacher I have instructed you so."

"And other than that, you need no excuse to whisk me off to detention?"

His glare deepened, "I explained why I had to give you detention, Corvin."

Nicole let out a laugh, loud and humourless. "Because I haven't done my DADA homework? Somehow – I don't buy it."

"No, you're in danger and well… you're safe in the castle."

"Danger," she snorted, watching his face closely. "You never said anything about danger."

"Yes, danger. And it appears in a more terrifying form than even David Hughes," Fiennes spat out the word as if it were poison.

"Now, now," she laughed, "We all know David Hughes' form is anything but terrifying."

Now he seemed very close to spitting, "that is the kind of attitude I see and hear enough of that makes me want to have him fired."

Nicole looked at him incredulously, "You want him fired because the female population finds him attractive?"

"No, I want him fired because he finds the entire female population attractive. And often takes advantage of the younger market."

"Like a, pedo-"

"Yes."

Nicole rocked back on her heels, "he's pretty good looking, I don't have any doubt in my mind that what you're thinking of, may indeed be pedophilia but…not forced." Smiling she added, "By any means." Nicole caught the look on Fiennes' face and quickly looked down, scared of what he may unleash.

"I will not have it."

"Uh…"

"I WILL NOT HAVE IT DAMN YOU!" Fiennes was roaring at her now, she began to get tearful and glanced up at him furiously. Strangely enough he wasn't looking at her. "I CAN'T… NO! NOT AGAIN. THIS TIME ITS ME OVER YOU. DON'T!" And with that, he fell to a huddled heap on the floor.

For a few moments all Nicole could do was stare at him. It had happened so quickly she had no time to react before he stirred quietly. "Huh…?"

"I don't know, Sir. You collapsed. But you were yelling…Uh, are you okay?' He grasped her offered elbow and pulled himself to his feet.

"I'm... I don't know Nicole," he rubbed his head and stared at her dizzily. "What did you hear?"

"I didn't hear anything…just a great deal about you and a pink g-banger." She was serious.

With no trace of amusement in his voice, he snapped around to look at her. "It isn't what you think… really…"

Nicole glanced around, "I was joking."

He tugged on his collar, "in that case, I expect you to forget you said that and tell me what really happened"

"You yelled no I can't, not again. Me over you, don't. Then collapsed." The words sounded oddly insignificant from her mouth. "I didn't even have time to say "Muriel's your aunty" you just went down."

"That's fine, fine, yes, and its fine. Nothing to worry about I suppose, nothing he can do. What Corvin? Stop looking at me," he snapped. "Go back to your dormitory. You're not to leave until I call you, not even for class. You must stay put, or…go to the infirmary. I will meet you there in the morning. Yes the infirmary. Promise me…you'll stay…and you won't tell a soul. Promise me," he grabbed her shoulders and his intense eyes blared into hers.

"I promise," she whispered, looking quite stricken.

------

Nicole was walking down the corridor. Thoughts like razor-blades, glanced off one another in her head, making her feel as though her head was feuding, and ready to rip her apart.

Nicole had recently gotten into the habit of talking to herself, it was quite sad actually. "He can't have… you think? Is he… maybe bad?

_Maybe sexy, _said the sneaky voice in her head.

"Bastard. He was so rude to me for no reason. Crazy man."

_Oh get over it you fucking wimp. Something big is about to happen I can feel it._

"No need to be rude…"

_Oh there is too when your logical side of the brain is being a gaylord_.

Stupid head, "Shut the fuck up," she snapped. Only then did Nicole notice a couple of first year students who were gathered in the corridor having a whispered conversation. They deduced that the scary sixth year was actually talking to them, and shut up quickly.

_God, I hate first years._

Something we agree on, thought the logical Nicole whilst sending the first years through a door with hands on their apparently burning backsides.

Feeling rather good with herself, Nicole refused to continue the conversation between the two sides of her brain and came to the conclusion that she would sleep on it. As she was strolling along, Nicole realised that she was no longer upright.

_You fell over, _came the voice of her right-side brain slyly.

"Christ." Nicole said. "What the hell?"

TD looked up at her from the floor through red-rimmed eyes. "Oh, hello," she said watching Nicole sidle in next to her.

"Bad day?"

TD sniffed, "uh huh."

"Never mind. Here" she handed TD a tissue. "What happened?"

"Sev- Snape and I, had a…I don't know. He was so angry. Am I being stupid, I mean what am I going to do?"

"Look, I know. Same thing happened with Fiennes, except not really. I'm not with Fiennes, but sometimes he looks at me…and I think I am. He went a little crazy this afternoon."

TD makes a noise in her throat while blowing her nose, and motioned for Nicole to continue.

"Okay, well he was in the middle of telling me off about something when he started yelling about how he wouldn't take it, then he was saying, 'it's me over you…no don't' and stuff like that, I don't know. Then he fell over, and woke up all paranoid. He wants me to stay-" Nicole broke off and clapped her hand over her mouth.

"And what?" TD insisted.

"He told me to-" Once again she tried to tell her, but she couldn't. "I can't say it! He made me…promise. That must be it."

TD struggled with the thought, "what are you talking about?"

Nicole coughed suddenly, "Oh look at that, I must be sick. Off to bed for me. Bye." And she left.

TD stared after her, confused by this strange turn of events. "Weird…I thought she would have wanted dinner at least."

Forgetting about Nicole quickly, TD left to wait in the courtyard for the others to arrive. Waiting was tedious for her so she plucked a stand of her black hair from her head and began tying knots in it in imitation of Briellen.

"Any minute now," she mumbled to herself, looking worried.

Anie had joined her, "I checked the hall, no ones there. They should be back by now."

Slowly the group appeared beyond the gates and Td ran to meet them with Anie hurrying in her wake. "Where have you been, you stupid fucks? I even sent Anie to look for you in the great hall, that's how worried I was."

Nicola narrowed her eyes, "show's how much you love us, that you sent someone else to find us. Well," she said slinging her arm around Anie's shoulder. "I know who my real friends are."

Briellen tossed her mane of golden red hair, "They should have listened to me that day in the hall. I told you I could see it, and you all thought I was going mad. I'M NOT MAD I TELL YOU!"

She grabbed Anie by the shoulders and shook her fiercely, with her hair about her face and her bulging blue eyes – Briellen looked like she had recently escaped an asylum.

Anie grasped and tried to pry free Briellen's white knuckled fingers, which had some way found themselves creeping towards the throat.

"What are you, talking…" Anie wheezed out, "…about?"

With the help of Nicola and Ivy, Anie managed to break free of Briellen and stood with her hands at her throat.

"I SAW HIS MARK – and she snapped at me, but now…" Briellen laughed manically "HE'S GOT HER!"

TD couldn't stand this any longer, "GOT WHO?" she yelled at Briellen.

But it was not Briellen who answered, "He got Isabel. Volde- you know?" Ivy said timidly, "he distracted us, really we tried to ignore him – but how many times do you see a dog?"

Nicola and Briellen were nodding so shamefacedly that TD threw Anie a glance.

"You saw his mark?" TD asked, "You never mentioned that…"

Briellen cocked her head to the side... much like a beagle… and remembered.

------

"Whoa," said Briellen in a strangely awed voice. "Did you see that? Something …over there?"

Everyone turned around to look out the window at where she was pointing. "What are you talking about Briellen? I can't see anything," Ivy demanded.

"Me neither."

"Yeah, what are you on about?"

Briellen looked slightly mystified, "It's… I've seen that before."

"Briellen!" yelled Isabel, "What's wrong with you?"

Briellen started and gave Isabel a hurt look, "Nothing, I thought I saw…"

"What?" Prompted Nicola. "Spit it out then, Bluey!"

"Nothing, never mind," she said looking crestfallen.

------

"Oh, yeah I remember now," Nicola murmured, "in our defense you were kind of evasive."

Briellen snorted, turned on her heel and left before calling over her shoulder, "you should've listened to me, and now you'll pay the price."

* * *

Later that evening in the common room TD, Anie and Ivy sat looking into the fire unmoving and silent, their thoughts all cast out in unison trying to sense their friend.

She should be with them now, and it was frustrating. Well, she wouldn't be _with_ them, as; if she was alive and okay she would be down at the Quiddich pitch practicing with the team before dinner. They had not told Dumbledore, and it was probably a good idea; they decided he was not in his right mind these days and telling him would probably only complicate matters.

It was a long two hours for the three girls sitting around the fire staring listlessly into its flickering depths. They had never experienced this before, a beloved friend lost to evil. Briellen was on the verge on doing a strip-tease in Isabel's honour when Analise clearly reminded her that Isabel may not even be dead.

She slumped back into her armchair and tried to strike up a conversation with TD who, surprisingly obliged and began chatting animatedly about their pledge to each other to become the Slytherin teams cheerleaders. They had almost decided on costumes but needed to check it over with Malfoy first as he was the captain. A cheerleading team had never been on record for a Quiddich game, sure mascots were a given at international levels but not lowly Hogwarts cheerleaders. It was an exciting prospect for them, and they momentarily forgot the misfortune of their friend.

The mood relaxed gladly, and they were still sitting in the same positions but with rather less of a tense air when Isabel wandered into the room. Everyone stopped, gasped and stared in her direction.

Isabel flinched when she was caught and turned to face them. "Hi guy's, how are you? Fine? Great. Nice talking to you, see you tomorrow." She made a hasty bid for freedom.

Ivy stood up with her hands on her hips, with a flash of her dark eyes she rounded on Isabel. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN YOU INSOLENT LITTLE…? ARGH WE'VE BEEN SO WORRIED!"

Isabel muttered something about 'not being able to help it', and gave the others a shifty look.

TD looked Isabel up and down noticing that she appeared distinctly rumpled. Her always neat and precise make-up had smudged down her face and her already large brown eyes appeared larger than normal in her white make-up stained face. She was also missing a sock.

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" TD asked looking worried.

"No."

"Where is your sock?" Anie was obviously very confused.

"I couldn't find them."

"He stole your socks?" Ivy asked.

"Well…no. I just forgot them."

TD threw an exasperated glance at Anie; they were going to get nowhere asking questions like this. "What happened to you?"

Isabel shuffled her feet and refused to meet their eyes. "Nothing, he didn't hurt me. Don't worry about it. I'm fine."

Ivy was wandering around Isabel and tugged at a bit of cloth hanging from Isabel's robe pocket. "Aha," she cried, "panties!" Ivy brandished them in Isabel's face. "Did you have sex with him?"

Isabel snatched the panties of Ivy, (if you could call them panties. More like a strip of cloth. Isabel was going for a more… sophisticated sexy look these days.)

"I'll thank you, to not wave my bloody knickers around the room. And yes, for your information, I did have sex with him. And he was a fantastically great shag." Isabel tossed her dark hair across her pale face and stalked from the room, panties held aloft.

Silence billowed into the room, as the few other students residing in the common room had stopped to watch this conversation. After a while some young girls broke out into high pitched giggles. Anie took out her wand and hexed them.

* * *

The day dawned without the usual white brightness of the approaching winter. Autumn was indeed a boring season. Although the Halloween feast was coming up and that was something to get excited about, also the first match of the season was not too far away from that either.

The day started out average, in an average charms class. The group was struggling with their revealing charms, and unfortunately ended up hexing the teacher. Doubting that this was good for her end of year report, Ivy fled the room to find McGonagall and convert the now jiggling mass of what seemed like jelly back into their rather short charms teacher.

On her way she bumped into a certain dark and messy haired someone, walking in the opposite direction.

"Oh Harry, sorry." She mumbled, rubbing her forehead.

Harry helped her off the floor and looked at her amusedly, "You make a habit of running into people in corridors I gather?"

Ivy recalled the incident a few days ago when she had run into Harry with considerable force, also in a corridor.

"I'm sorry Harry, I'm in a rush. Looking for McGonagall, we accidentally turned Flitwick into goop."

Harry chuckled, "Goop? Whose bright idea was that?"

"Uh," Ivy paused as her own face flashed clearly into her mind. "Nicola."

"I see. Well I'm going that way myself. Or I was, after I go to the bathroom. But that can wait, come on, Flitwick being turned into goop outweighs my fear of wetting myself."

They returned promptly to the charms classroom with McGonagall in tow, huffing and puffing in her old age. With one flick of her wrist she returned the strange jelly green substance into Professor Flitwick and left the room in distress after clearly reprimanding Nicola, who had no idea why she was being blamed for this incident but accepted it nonetheless. She wished it was her idea.

Flitwick bustled about angrily, "Well," he said. "Show me what you've learnt about revealing charms. You too Potter, seeing as you'd rather stay in my classroom than head back into your own."

Harry raised his eyebrows and sat down at a desk. "I know how to do it Sir, ask one of your sixth years."

Flitwick accepted this uneasily and sprung on Ivy, "Well then Miss Lam. Go ahead. And you may help her you insolent pup." He pointed at Harry with his wand and retreated onto his pile of books.

Harry stood and swaggered over to Ivy, "on three?" he whispered, and they said the spell together. Ivy unfortunately made a wrong arm movement and her jet of light ended up melding together with Harry's.

No one noticed that the spell back fired. They did however begin to notice something was awry when Flitwick turned to them all and shouted, "I FIND MEN AROUSING" He then clamped his hand over his mouth, face aghast.

This created a domino effect as people yowled and winced when their personal and hidden secrets began to be painfully revealed. The loudest squeal however came from Isabel who was unsuccessfully trying to hide her legs from view. The skirt she was wearing started to ride higher and higher as what looked like leg hair struggled against her hands, threatening to break free. No one noticed gradually lengthening leg-hair as they were too engrossed in their own problems.

Nicola, who was trying to hide the ten pastries and twenty cakes that had come tumbling out of her cloak, was slipping in the many broken jars of stolen Felix Felicis that had come from the depths of TD's cloak.

TD groaned as the golden liquid held together in the little vials, began to smash all over the floor, she completely disregarded Briellen as the red-haired girl shouted and sobbed that her hair was actually brown. Briellen was attempting to throw herself out the window in her distress.

Anie also in her private corner of the room was struggling in vain to chain herself to a desk to stop herself from running to Draco Malfoy and declaring her passionate love for the man.

The chaos continued to rage around them as many people shouted hidden secrets. Ginny's shout of "I EAT MY TOENAILS" was heard above the crash of many secreted objects flying from all corners of the room.

The only two people that seemed not to care about this hubbub were Ivy and Harry who seemed to be glued together at the lips. If anyone had been interested in them, they would be surprised to find that their human vision could not separate where Ivy ended and Harry began. Their roaming hands however alerted the embarrassed Charms teacher, who in his private rage sent them flying from the room with a swish of his wand.

This was the least of his problems however, as Isabel's leg hair increased in size so much that it threatened to engulf them all. She screamed hysterically and gave up at attempting to stem the flow of hair, resorting to screaming her head off like a dying chicken… a dying chicken with a human voice.

Soon the hair was so bad that it struggled to break free of the small tower classroom and the people inside the room gagged as the hair entered their bodies via their noses, mouth and ears. With a large ripping sound, the roof of the classroom was torn clean off and fell to the watery depths of the lake below.

Olivia churned to the surface and roared in squid at the outrage of this abomination falling into her home. Briellen screamed even louder as the tentacles came closer towards them. Olivia did not however reach for Briellen, but swept past her and took Isabel and her massively long leg hair into the depths of the lake.

So the class sat in the ruined classroom, silent and glaring at each other. Eventually the spell began to wear off and everybody left the room, vowing to never speak of it again.

The day passed quickly and Isabel returned from the lake, unknowingly with a large hole in the backside of her skirt. She commented that she preferred Voldemort to the Squid. They sat drone-like through the rest of their lessons, the activity in the Charms class was quite enough for the day and it had built up a large appetite.

It was about the end of the day when Nicole appeared saying something about Fiennes not letting her leave the infirmary. She refused to comment any more and they left to go to dinner.

Finally.

"ISABEL! ISABEL YOU BITCH!" Nicola yelled above the heads of 20 or so students.

"I SAID GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY RUNT!" Isabel plowed her way through the masses using considerable force, until she made it to where Nicola was standing.

"OW!" exclaimed a 3ft first year, who had just been knocked to the ground by an especially angry Isabel.

Isabel threw him a filthy look, and shoved him into a wall, conveniently located just 50cm away. "PISS OFF!" she bellowed. The first year looked completely bewildered. The girls ignored him.

All the rest of the students started to clear away, but one student, who caught the eyes of Nicola and Isabel immediately - Alanah. Behind her, they noticed Nicole walking up towards them.

Nicola picked up her incredibly heavy, textbook loaded bag, and launched it in Alanah's direction.

It hit her; it hit her hard, and square in the face. She yelled in agony as she waved her arms about in front of her as if it would bring her clear sight.

"YESSSS!!!" Nicola exclaimed, just as if she had hit a bludger at an unsuspecting Gryffindor.

Isabel laughed hysterically for several minutes, whilst Nicole repeatedly kicked Alanah in the face and ribs.

"AAAAAAAAARGH YOU'RE KILLING ME!" Alanah screamed.

"THAT'S THE POINT YOU BITCH! HOW DARE YOU RIP ME OFF WITH YOUR STUPID UN-EVEN CIRCLES?" Nicole was yelling so loudly the ground was shaking.

Nicola and Isabel were slightly confused by Nicole's remark, but nevertheless they continued to laugh at Alanah's misfortune.

"EXPELL-"

"NO NICOLA!" Nicole looked confused… she had no idea why she was stopping Nicola… but she glared at Nicola fiercely anyways.

"HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT ME MID-SPELL, YOU BITCH? AVADA KEDAVRA!!"

The jet of green light missed Nicole by inches, and Isabel was still laughing. Instead, Nicola managed to hit Alanah. Upon realizing this, Isabel laughed even harder.

"NICOLA! YOU HOE! YOU TRIED TO KILL ME!"

Nicola grinned widely and proudly.

"Yeah and accidentally killed this chick" Nicola pushed the limp body with her foot as if she was a stray dog… a sleeping… stray dog.

"What are we going to do?" Nicole looked around for an escape plan… or something.

"I've got an idea!" Isabel, it seemed, had finally stopped laughing.

There was loud smashing and banging as Isabel absent-mindedly waved her wand, and shoved Alanah's body through the mouth hole in a near-by case of armor.

"Done and done!" Isabel was obviously very happy with her work.

She quickly tucked some of Alanah's stray hair into the armor… and resorted back to laughing.

"YOU! WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? YOU LITTLE TURD! ANSWER ME!" Nicola was yelling at the first year that Isabel had beaten down earlier.

"I'll take care of this… AVADA KEDAVRA!" Nicole then chuckled.

"… Nicole… that was so unlike you… I'm SO PROUD!" Isabel and Nicola both made a fuss over their 'new' masochistic friend.

The girls stepped over the newly deceased body, and walked down to the great hall where everyone else was gathering for dinner.

* * *

A/N:

Thank you for reading I hope you liked the long chapter.

The last bit, from "NICOLA, NICOLA YOU BITCH" was written by my lovely friend Isabel, who happens to have a flair for elaborate death scenes.

It was well written, yes?

Well seventh is over, next comes eight.

Toodles. xo


	8. Oh, The Insanity

_I know, this chapter is LONGGG overdue. _

_Thank Isabel for getting me writing again._

_I have lot's of idea's and I'm already working on chapter 9._

_I'mm baaaackk._

* * *

Olivia was lonely. Halloween was not her favourite time of year, when people began to throw large objects in her lake and howl in their human language. Olivia obviously couldn't understand what they meant and had eaten most of them. Apparently the school wasn't too happy about that, so she regurgitated them – thinking that they might fire her.

She waved her tentacles in her face in an effort to cheer herself up. No body had come down to visit her this week. That is because she is gay. She left Nicole and Nicole is angrily writing Olivia into solitary confinement. (Nicole is basically over this now because the initial heartbreak was Olivia leaving Nicole in mathematics, but since Nicole actually doesn't do mathematics anymore... she has decided to keep her word anyway.)

In a dungeon near the Slytherin Common room, a familiar tune was being hummed. Snape paced backwards and forwards across the black granite floor, his heels clicking with every step. He craftily matched his humming to the clicking of his boots, "Islands in the stream… hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm… no one in between, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm… Sail away with me…hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm…"

"Severus?" asked a brisk voice. "What is that ridiculous tune you are humming?"

Snape started and whipped around to face McGonagall. "Just something I hum every now and again Minerva. Nothing to worry about."

McGonagall looked at him warily, "I've been sent to find you. Something about the match. The charm has run out and we want Dumbledore to be there. Can't very well do that without you, can we?" She tapped her heel on the floor, and glanced around herself suspiciously. "So far this is going well, but the tiniest mishap; you know how these children can be –"

"Yes, yes." Said Snape, cutting McGonagall off loudly. "I know all about it. I'll be there in a few moments."

McGonagall was not entirely convinced as she walked across the floor and up the stairs to the more welcoming parts of Hogwarts. Snape had a few gruelling moments to himself and he tried and fought against his will to restrain himself from bursting into the Slytherin common room unannounced.

While inside a few Slytherins sat unmoving; waiting for the bell that would signify that the match was going to start and to make their way down to the pitch. Only one among our favourite seven was there, Ivy. TD and Briellen had already left the common room to go and change for their halftime entertainment.

Ivy had heard the clicking of Snape's snake-skin boots disappear away up the corridor and breathed a sigh of relief.

That man made her nervous.

It was not just his black clothing and black make-up but his fierce black eyes that seemed to follow her everywhere these days. Perhaps he had heard that she and Harry had become something of an item, and because of his dislike of Harry, he had extended that particular feeling to her as well.

* * *

In the locker room before the game Isabel was nervously whacking her beaters club against her thigh. Nicola followed suit and also began to annoyingly tap her club against her thigh also. They were sitting around in a circle, all wondering how long until the match. And wondering what was taking so long.

Draco decided that the team needed a little inspiration and sent Nicole off to find some ice-creams. She came back with 4 large sundaes in hand, and handed them out to herself, Anie, Nicola and Isabel. Thankfully for Nicole; Draco, Kraven and Blaise had a bad case of pre-game jitters that they didn't notice their lack of ice cream.

Abruptly Nicola yelled, "Oh… HURRY! THE MATCH" And they all suddenly forgot their ice creams, except for Isabel of course who sprinted onto the pitch clutching her triple deck sundae in one hand and her broomstick in the other.

They stood blinking in the sunlight as a thousand or more angry faces leered at them from the stands. They looked up to see the Hufflepuff team glaring from the grass where they were sitting in a circle, and a distinctly ruffled Madame Hooch; who, on which it was clear, waiting did not suit.

Without another word, and not even waiting for the captains to shake hands, Hooch gave her silver whistle a short blast and hoisted the quaffle into the air. The players quickly scrambled onto their broomsticks and were ready to play some Quiddich.

It was then that Isabel noticed the ice cream was nearly thrown from her hand by a very red haired and very inconsiderate Hufflepuff chaser. He immediately stopped being inconsiderate as he was knocked quite unconscious by the handle of Isabel's bat. She sat back happily on her broom, until she realized the ice cream had indeed been thrown from her hand.

Looking about wildly she realized that Nicola below was carefully cradling her beloved ice cream, who then took the liberty of finishing it off. Isabel gave a sigh of defeat and retrieved her bat, ready to play ACTUAL Quiddich.

The game from then on was fast-paced. From the Slytherin side, of course; as the Hufflepuffs didn't have the greatest brooms, and were easily out flown by the green and silver blur's that were the Slytherins.

Nicole, Anie and Kraven had flown and handled the quaffle so well that they were seventy points up, twenty minutes into the game. Ivy's voice came from the commentator's box low and croaky with nerves. "Uh, so Kraven scores again in the left hoop, he seems to be favouring that one folks. The Hufflepuff seeker didn't even have a chance. What was his name? Rafferty?"

"…Coltrane. His name is Coltrane," hissed McGonagall.

Laughs from the crowd. "Uh, right." Ivy said into the megaphone. "So, Coltrane misses it, he actually went into the wrong direction and now the red-haired Hufflepuff chaser Bingley has gotten the ball. I don't like his sister Caroline, she's a right old b-"

"Miss Lam, might I remind you that the younger Hogwarts pupils are watching this game also, not to mention parents. Would you mind your tongue or am I going to have to take over the commentary?" McGonagall's voice was very low, that even Draco, who was right next to the box at the time, was finding it hard to pick up.

At half time the teams were called to an abrupt halt and flown to the bottom of the pitch to have a hushed discussion, when a disturbance was heard in the locker rooms.

"NO! NO I WILL NOT PROFESSOR! I'VE SPENT A GOOD TEN MINUTES OF MY LIFE SEWING THESE COSTUMES FOR MYSELF AND BRIELLEN, AND… WELL I WON'T BE STOPPED DAMN YOU!"

Snape's voice sounded, if possible even louder than TD's. "…MISS LUCENA! HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME IN SUCH A WAY? ME, OF ALL PEOPLE… I DO NOT DESERVE THIS TREATMENT. NO! YOU GET BACK HERE. AND YOU TOO YOU DAMN BLASTED, RED-HAIRED BEAGLE… DON'T THINK THAT JUST BECAUSE YOUR GARMENTS ARE SO SMALL THAT IT MEANS I CANNOT SEE YOU. IN FACT, I CAN SEE MORE OF THAT THAN I EVER WISHED. AND I DARESAY **ANYBODY** WOULD EVER WI-"

A large and deafening supersonic boom sounded from the locker rooms and pulsated through the crowd. TD and Briellen then emerged from the change rooms. TD looking defiant, Briellen… mousey.

Nicole, Anie and Nicola crash landed in front of them, mouths agape. They were all staring pointedly at their outfits, along with the rest of the school. The bright fuchsia pink clothes they were wearing, if they were to be called clothes, were barely covering the largely breasted TD and the very ample bottomed Briellen. (One of the trait's she has gained from having black ancestors.)

Without even a glance to the stands, TD whipped her wand about, materialising a large magical speaker which then roared out a past-paced bongo track. She then brought out her pom-pom's and began to do an elaborate dance… in fact it was somewhat of a tribal dance.

Briellen tried half-heartedly to join in but stopped, in obvious distress. Snape's comments had really gotten to her. Isabel joined the three who had stopped to gape at the nearly exposed TD's dance. She made a noise deep in her throat of disgust and took off her Quiddich robe and draped it around Briellen's near naked torso.

Over and over the speaker played the bongo song, becoming faster and faster. TD herself becoming a blur of skin and fuchsia as she danced faster and faster around the pitch.

Snape had now emerged from the locker room's looking sallow-faced but otherwise calm. He directed his wand at TD who immediately fell to the floor unconscious. He then pointed at the speaker which turned into a small rubber chicken. He strode towards it, bent and tucked it away in his pocket.

He then turned and addressed the crowd, "I see no need for this silliness to continue. She was bewitched. No doubt a stupid prank played on her by one of her illustrious friends. I will take her to Madame Pomfrey. Please, continue the match." He then went to TD and lifted her up the old-fashioned way and left the pitch, beckoning Briellen to follow him.

The crowd was hushed. Nobody spoke. And then Ivy cleared her throat. "I suggest we all do as Professor Sn-Snape suggested. Let's take ten minutes and be back on the pitch."

Surprisingly, this was actually a good idea. The ten minutes were spent closing the gap of tension TD's tribal dance had caused, and by the time everyone was ready to get back on the pitch, everything was as it should have been.

A few broken bones and split lips later, Draco spotted the Snitch and fell into a steep dive momentarily before pulling out at the last second with a small and fluttering golden ball in his hand. He held it up triumphantly to the cheers and screams of the green and silver clad fans.

He smiled happily and turned to hug his team-mates, finding then already packed up and sprinting off to the castle. He shrugged and launched the snitch into the crowd, revelling in the attention.

* * *

"So, what happened?" Nicole said, looking up at TD from the end of her white hospital wing bed.

TD glanced up at her friends who were currently gathered around her bed. "Nothing..."

One of Isabel's eyebrows lifted in a vague imitation of surprise. "Oh, so all that "tribal" dancing around the pitch was just our imagination. Seriously TD, what gives?"

TD had the sense to look a little guilty. "I guess I was jealous of you guys."

Briellen looked up, and her expression reminded the others of a deer caught in headlights. "We thought it would be good to provide some half-time entertainment… I didn't know it was going to end up like that honestly…"

TD scratched at her head, "I suppose it got out of hand."

"Really?" Said Nicola, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. "You don't think the slutty costumes, and the Snape-smashing was enough, you had to go and do a tribal dance. I must admit, I enjoyed that very much. This particular move" – She popped her chest out and back again – "was my personal favourite."

Anie still looked aghast, "Don't you ever do something like that again. How embarrassing, and everyone knows I'm your friend… oh God. Am I going to have to go into hiding?"

"Oh don't be so over-dramatic," Nicole swatted a hand at her. "We'll just do what Snape said. Tell everyone she was… confunded or something. As if anyone would think TD would do something like that without being confunded." She paused, looking thoughtful and laying a hand on TD's forehead. "Are you sure you AREN'T confunded?"

Td smacked her hand away. "I'm sure. I over-reacted, I know. It's just, Sev really pissed me off. If he hadn't come and interfered Briellen probably would've managed to talk me out of it. I guess it's my fault, more than Briellen's fault."

"So it's Briellen's fault? God, Briellen. You're such a slut." Ivy said, coming into the room with a pitcher of water.

Briellen made a slight squealing noise and glared at Ivy fiercely. "You can't come into a room mid-conversation and assume you know everything Ham."

"It's Lam."

Nicola and Isabel threw back their heads laughing. It stayed this way for a while until Isabel abruptly stopped. "No. It's now Ham," she said barely glancing Ivy. "Good one Briellen."

Ivy sighed and sat by Nicole, who gave her a sympathetic look. "Don't worry about them. They're on a bit of a high after TD's performance at the match."

"TALKING OF PERFORMANCES… WE WON!" Yelled a voice from the door.

They all turned around to see Draco, grinning at them from the open doorway. "I suppose we have you to thank TD. Your dance really screwed up the concentration of those Hufflepuff players, and helped me get the chance to catch the little ol' snitch. Although," he tipped his head sideways, "it's not like I needed any help. I am an extraordinary seeker anyways."

"That you are Draco," drawled a voice from behind Draco. The seven people in the room craned their necks to see another blond haired visitor. Lucius Malfoy stepped forward and placed his leather gloved hand on his son's shoulder. Nicola perked up noticeably.

"Why, Mr. Malfoy! How lovely to see you!" Said Madame Pomfrey, bustling in from her office that adjoined to the hospital wing. "Now if you could please leave…" She began to usher him away from the sick beds and back onto the landing.

Lucius turned his head slightly, his blond hair spider-webbed across his thin pale face. "Now, now Poppy, I thought we had talked about this. I am doing no harm to these students and I am just here with my son to congratulate these girls." Lucius drawled, giving Madame Pomfrey a cold glare.

Madame Pomfrey's face turned ashen, and she jabbered like a fish out of water. "But, but… there's already too many visitors. And this girl is fine to go. So… GET OUT OF HERE GIRLS. AND YOU TOO DRACO."

They all made themselves scarce, pausing in the hallway to listen to the rest of this tense conversation.

"Draco," said Anie, tugging on his hand, "will your father hurt her?"

"Maybe," said Draco looking unworried. "If you're that stressed leave, that way you're guilt free. Didn't witness anything."

"Death doesn't scare us," said Isabel. "We kill people all the time… well I do."

They all dismissed this and continued to listen at the door. Back inside the room, the tension was mounting.

"You see?" continued Pomfrey. "So there is really no need-"

"Ah but there is need, my dear Poppy," Lucius took a step towards the trembling matron. "The need… is mine. I must be allowed to exercise my power over this place, or how else am I to overtake it."

Pomfrey murmured and looked white as a sheet, when Lucius lifted a finger into the air and said softly. "Ah… but you mustn't know this. I guess this is where I… clear the air."

He gave his wand arm a wave and Madame Pomfrey's body erupted into flames. She screeched and flailed her arms about, slowly falling to the floor – body burning. She gave one almighty yell before the flames ceased and her body was nothing but ash, which was instantly blown out of the open window.

Lucius chuckled and tucked his wand away beneath his robes, took out his broom and launched himself out of the open window behind Pomfrey's ashes.

"Well, he turns me on." Isabel said, looking around. "So greatly."

Nicola gave her a punch on the arm. "He's mine you dirty bitch. You have Voldemort. Stop being a fucking sleaze. GO CHECK OUT YOUR OWN… MAN?"

"Oh, he is a man." She gave everyone a sly look, "in all the ways that matter anyway."

Draco looked blank. "I'm going now," and marched off making retching noises.

Nicole shuddered. "Ew. Can we just go to dinner please? I'm starving, and I'd like to forget about this."

Anie and Briellen shrugged and followed Nicole wordlessly down the staircase, Ivy trailing behind them. Isabel and Nicola, still glaring at each other followed also, warily watching everything the other one did.

TD was the last to leave, giving the empty room a sweeping glance. No one would ever know what happened to the Matron. She sighed.

Oh well. Like it mattered anyway.

* * *

Dinner on Halloween was its usual large and over celebrated self. Floating candles, floating pumpkins; and a whole bunch of bats.The group ate with their usual gusto, pleased with themselves for winning the match twenty to two-hundred and fifty. That put Hufflepuff squarely out of their chances to win the cup, for the rest of the season. As if anyone expected them to win?

"Mhph… God this potato is good. Pass us the gravy Ham?" grumbled Nicole through a mouthful of roasted herb potatoes.

Ivy reached over the table and pushed the gravy mug an inch closer to Nicole, who grasped it by the handle immediately and slathered her chops in it. "That's the stuff." She said, swallowing. "Now where did the rice get to…?"

Isabel looked up, her fork hanging in mid-air between her mouth and the large plate of rice she was busy devouring. Curry sauce all over the plate and dripping down the side. "Uh, I think the rice is somewhere below all that sauce Nicole. Want some?"

Nicole gave a shrug and dug her fork into the plate, spilling rice all over the table-top.

"Man what is it with you and dropping things everywhere?" Isabel scoffed. "Last time I invited you to my house it was like, 'Oh, Isabel blah blah blah' then you spill Pepsi all over the table!"

Nicola jumped to Nicole's defence, "If I remember correctly Isabel, it was you who launched a DVD case across the table and directly into a can of Coke. Nicole's can of Coke might I add." She crossed her arms over her chest, looking smug.

She gave Nicola a cool look. "No need to be bitchy, just cause your 'man' might find me sexually arousing."

"He doesn't, that I know of." Draco said from the other side of the table, ignoring Isabel who made an insulted noise. "He was intrigued with Nicola. Kept asking me who you were, Nic."

Nicola blushed delightedly before rounding on Draco and demanding, "Really? What else?"

He looked taken-aback. "Nothing really…I guess." He lowered his voice and looked around at them all. "You guys know that my father is thinking of taking over the school right?"

Ivy narrowed her eyes, "We've heard of it…"

"Well," he continued, looking at Nicola. "He needs a student group. A bit like Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad. I can't be the leader; I guess it'd be too obvious to McGonagall or something. He says surprise is critical to his plan. That and he needs a following here. Guess he thinks Nicola is the one he's looking for."

"That's genius." TD said, looking at Nicola too. "Old McGonagall wouldn't ever be able to guess. We've had nothing to do with him, I doubt Minny even knows we're chummy with Draco, other than the Quiddich thing you know."

"What's this group all about anyway…?" Nicola asked Draco, bringing attention back to him.

He leant back with a smile. "You'll find out. Soon enough. Now stop worrying and eat your chops. I'm sure dad will come and visit us again soon. Meanwhile, keep this to yourselves okay." He went back to his food for a moment before turning back to the group, "Oh, Anie; can I have a word with you later… in private? I have something I need to talk to you about."

Anie's ears turned pink. "Yeah, of course…"

* * *

When they all returned to the common room after dinner they Briellen rounded on Anie. "Whatever happens, you must come straight back to the girls dormitory and report it. Like, straight away. I'm not joking."

"Yep, I second that," said Ivy.

"Third," put in Nicola.

"Four-"

"I GET IT!" Yelled Anie; who was now very pink in the face, this was not unusual. "I'm going now."

She left the common room at a brisk walk when she found Draco lurking in a dark corridor near the common room. "Hey, Draco," she gave the blond haired boy a smile.

He smiled back hesitantly and took a step towards her, taking her hands. "We haven't had a chance to talk about what happened the other week… you seem really uncomfortable."

"I'm just not used to this kind of thing. I think I acted really strangely, and I'm sorry for how I walked in on you." She seemed embarrassed and wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Well you see I really li-" before Draco had a chance to say anything further, Fiennes ran around the corner and halted puffing, and clutching his chest in front of them.

"Kids! You have to help me, please…" He stared into Draco's face, his eyes strangely hollow and his face unkempt and unshaven. His clothes looked dishevelled and his hair as if it hadn't been brushed in days.

"Sir?" Anie said, "What's wrong?"

Fiennes swayed slightly on his feet and turned his hollow eyes on her, "I think someone is trying to make me go mad. I don't know what's real anymore…" He screwed up his eyes, grabbed at his head and stumbled a few steps away. Draco and Anie stared.

He straightened up abruptly and turned on Draco. "YOU!" he yelled; eyes bulging. "You followed me here, you demon!" He brought out his wand and threw a hex at Draco's head.

Draco ducked quickly to avoid the spell, and the red light flew just above him hitting the wall and blast away some stone, which fell crumbling onto Draco's head. Anie yelled and dragged Draco away.

Fiennes smiled insanely, "Got him!"

Anie stared, "Professor, are you out of your mind?"

Fiennes snapped his lifeless eyes on her, "You? You're with him aren't you!?" He rounded on her, grabbing her throat with his large hands. "I won't let you hurt them. These kids' are important… You don't understand. Stay away!"

"Professor…" Anie managed to choke out. "It's me… Analise…"

Just at that moment Draco flew out of nowhere, punching Fiennes square in the face. He hit the ground with a loud thud. "SNAP OUT OF IT PROFESSOR."

Fiennes looked up at them from the floor. He trembled. "Oh, God. Kids… are you alright? I didn't mean to… I don't know what's happening."

"You tried to kill us; that is what's happening."

"I'm sorry… I can't control myself… at first I was only imagining I was using my wand, now I really am." He stood and backed away from them. "You have to help me… before I really hurt someone."

* * *

_Nine is coming soon._

_Keep .. uhh, tuned?_

_Idk._


	9. New Arrivals

_For some reason, all the words in this chapter got deleted._

_So I had to reupload it._

* * *

"This is taking, FOREVER!" Grumbled Nicola loudly. "I seriously don't know what he could be saying that would take this long to spit out."

Ivy glanced at her watch, "They've been out there for twenty minutes."

"Far too long," Nicola muttered, throwing herself into an armchair.

Briellen looked up at TD from her Rubik's Cube. "Go and check what's going on," she suggested lightly.

TD looked shocked, "why me? Why can't Nicole go, or Isabel?"

Briellen shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her Rubik's Cube. "Sounded like a good plan."

Ivy nodded, "its true TD. Just go."

TD grumbled like Nicola, but more violently and left the common room. She was waiting for the painting to swing open when Anie came running through and collided with her, throwing TD with considerable force back into the common room.

Briellen gave an exasperated sigh, "Can you keep it down; this is hard. I need to concentrate."

"Guys! I need help! He's has gone mad… I don't know what's wrong. Draco is trying to restrain him, but we can't take him to Pomfrey because she's –"

"– Sick," finished Nicola lightly, with a fleeting thought after Malfoy senior's wellbeing. "And what the hell are you talking about?"

"It's… Fiennes," she whispered with a glance at the other students. "He's gone mental. For some reason he ran at us and attacked us, nearly killed Draco too. But he begged us to help him, and we were trying to when he went mental again, Draco is trying to stop him but I had to come back here for more help…"

"Anie, calm down," Shushed Ivy gently, "We'll come out and help you now. Where did you leave them?"

"In the corridor with the portrait of the Mad Executioner of Dunsborough, but I don't know whether they'll still be there."

"THAT'S IT!" Declared Briellen, "if you guys can't shut up, I'm going to my room."

"Fine, no one wanted you anyway." Snapped Isabel. "Lead the way Fans."

With a muttered word of grateful thanks Anie took them to a dark corridor. An empty dark corridor. "Where are they then?" Demanded Briellen, who had trailed along and ignored Isabel.

"Obviously not here," Nicole pointed out, "look over there. That wall has been all but blasted away. He must have escaped."

"Oh my god, Draco!" Anie was peering into the dark corridor. She gave a yelp of worry and sprung after a dark silhouette. "Is that you?"

He coughed and nearly fell onto Anie, "It's me… he got away. I chased him, but he left the school grounds."

"Well, he's gone and done a runner then. I wonder what his problem was," TD's voice came out from a darkened corner.

Isabel felt her way around to find Nicole. After slapping her an annoying amount of times in the face to make sure it was her, she asked; "Did you notice anything strange about Fiennes when you were with him the other day?"

"Yes," Nicole answered hesitantly. "Don't you remember? I told you. He had a seizure and was muttering about 'No I won't let you have them' or something like that. I told you!" She repeated, very wound up.

"Yes, yes you did." Anie reassured her.

Draco coughed again, "I think he's involved in something. But he doesn't want to be. Perhaps the Imperius curse? And he's fighting it?"

"Can you do that?" Nicola asked with a disbelieving tone. "I don't think you can."

"You can, if the curser is weak perhaps. Or struggling to keep the curse on. I've heard distance does something too." Draco said.

Isabel sighed melodramatically, "Well we can't do anything about it tonight. We'll go to Dumbledore tomorrow, or perhaps McGonagall."

"She's right," agreed TD, "sleep is the best thing for us to do right now. You guys go ahead; I'll just clean this up."

Everyone sprung at the chance to be left without the cleanup and TD was standing alone with the broken wall. "Reparo," she declared, brandishing her wand like a sword at the wall. She looked around her after she was done to find Nicole still standing in the shadows. She jumped violently. "Nicole! You scared me."

"Where are you going?"

TD rolled her eyes, to no avail. Nicole couldn't see her do it as it was pitch black. "Snape. I'm going to tell him what's going on."

"That all?"

TD hesitated, "No, but you understand don't you. The thing I did at the match was a stupid idea and well, I guess I did it to annoy him. This worked. But you guys say he took me to the infirmary? It proves he cares, in some capacity. I just need to talk to him."

Nicole sighed heavily and gave TD a strong bear hug. She was left looking slightly bedraggled when Nicole stalked off. A feeling of foreboding came over her and she tried hard to shake it free as she tread the familiar steps to Snape's dungeon office.

Before she had a chance to even knock on the door, it opened and Snape stepped into the light. His nose seemed more curved than usual and there were wrinkles on his face where before there was none. He looked as if he had lost twenty pounds.

"You look terrible," she told him.

"I've not been eating or sleeping well…" He trailed off looking uncomfortable. "How have you been?"

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, "I suppose I've been fine, Professor." A certain firm resistance came about in her voice, despite her agitation, to counter his soft words.

"Don't do that," he said quietly.

"Do what?" she replied.

"Be all… proper with me. You and I…" He looked just as troubled as she felt.

"Look, don't say it okay. We both did really stupid things," she ignored his obvious scowl at this, "and I'm sure we both regret them." She stopped abruptly.

His face was impassive, "I wonder which stupid things you are referring to…"

TD bristled, "the match of course, as if you would ever let me forget it with those black looks of yours." For a moment she regretted spitting this out like a snarling cat. The look of relief that came over his face shocked her. Was he worried that she thought of something else as a mistake?

"We should probably end this."

He was looking at her with wide dark eyes and an expression so soft her words nearly died in her throat. "Yes. We should." She began to walk away slowly, knowing that he was looking after her. She spun quickly and threw herself into his arms, kissing him fiercely.

They broke apart and Snape gave a weak chuckle, "Well… now I'm really confused."

TD leant back and wiped an arm across her mouth, "Well, I'm uh, going to go now." And she did.

TD made her way to the great hall for breakfast when she bumped into another student. "HEY, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE FUCKING GOING!"

The tall seventh year student from Hufflepuff stepped back and hid his eyes with his hands to defend himself from the smaller Slytherin girl. She tapped her chest at him and laughed, sending him flying into the stone staircase with a flick of her wand. When TD turned back around to continue making her way, she noted that the entrance hall was unusually full.

"ISABELLA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Nicole's raised and excited voice carried from the great front doors. When TD eventually blasted her way through the gaggle of bystanders come to watch, she saw Isabella enclosed in Nicole's bear hug and winced. Her hugs were known to be very rough.

Isabella laughed and wrenched herself free of Nicole's rib crushing grasp and as they stepped to the side, a large rectangular box could be seen. "I was trying to get Isabel's present to her. I promised you know. I promised I'd send it, but the stupid owls decided to be piss weak and die of exhaustion instead of carrying it to her. I mean seriously, what kind of mail owls are they?"

Anie was smiling brightly despite the nights events and gave Isabella a warm hug also. "Isabel isn't here at the moment; she just went to the bathroom. So tell us, how did you get here?"

"I walked," she said promptly, giving them all a level look.

Briellen quirked an eyebrow, "You walked from the station?"

"No," Isabella replied calmly. "I walked from Australia."

"No wonder you're late. Term started two months ago," Ivy chuckled, thinking Isabella was joking.

Isabel, who had just arrived, shoved Ivy to the floor for no reason at all and walked over her to reach the group. She ignored the muttering from the girl on the floor. "Hey, whose box is this?" She demanded, already picking at the half broken nails keeping the thin wooden box together.

"Its your apparently," Ivy said, taking Briellen's offered hand and lifting herself to her feet."

"Oh!" Isabel said delighted, and materialized a hammer to begin removing the nails.

Isabella slapped her hand away, "Not yet. You haven't even said hello to me!"

Isabel stared in eye-widened amazement before enfolding Isabella in a hug. Isabella laughed, "That's more like it. Now open your birthday present."

The rest of the group shifted self consciously, "AT LEAST SOMEONE REMEMBERED MY BIRTHDAY!" Isabel declared in anger, shaking her wand at her friends.

Anie opened her mouth to reply angrily that everyone had forgotten her and Nicole's birthday's but was cut off with Isabel's charm to break the box open. When the dust settled a tall lanky man stumbled out, eyes unfocused and staring, he swayed meekly. "Behold!" Cried Isabella dramatically, "Le Jimmy Urine!"

Everyone clapped hands to their ears as Isabel's squeal of glee resounded in the hall, with a cry she flung herself at the body of her favourite singer and proceeded to hug him furiously.

Everyone watched her in torpid silence, broken only when Isabel began to roll around on the floor with Jimmy clasped tightly to her chest. The crowd began to dissipate, the usual antics of this group sometimes wasn't enough to entertain them. Nicola looked aside at Isabella, "Jimmy Urine? How the hell did you get him to come with you?"

"With a lot of sedatives and a very sterile syringe, I'll say I gave him half a dozen jabs before he seemed docile enough to be enticed into the box. Who'd have thought? Lamb and mint sauce. It's his weakness. If only I'd have put it in there sooner, I mightn't have had to drug him." Isabella looked fondly at the skinny girl who was now straddling the very spaced out singer. "The box was helpful for the ocean you know. Floated and everything."

Before they could question her further a voice interrupted. "That's enough of that, Miss Steele" Said McGonagall lightly. She had just entered the hall in a swirl of magenta robes and looked servery pissed of. "Go inside and have some breakfast for pity's sake. And who is this?" She gestured at Jimmy who was lying on the floor.

"Um, he's a guest speaker in Muggle studies Professor," Nicola said loftily with a very convincing air. "He's just gotten a bit sick on the travel here. Motion sickness you know."

McGonagall puffed out her cheeks, gave her glasses a tweak and strode away. Isabel was now dragging the nearly lifeless Jimmy around with her by the hand, "Come on! It's time for transfiguration. Are you coming with us Isabella?"

"No," she said looking aside. "There are some things I have to take care of. Have fun with him though." She dropped the group of girls a wink and made her way out to the grounds.

The girls headed off to Transfiguration, looking forward to getting an eyeful of Professor Hughes, front and back.

"God… I could stare at it ALL day" TD said, as her walking slowed and it was obvious she was falling into a daydream.

"Oh, who couldn't?" Briellen, for the first time, was getting into a conversation about men. It was a rarity.

Whilst the rest of the girls made inappropriate comments about Professor Hughes and his fantastic anatomy, Nicole lagged behind, thinking about where Fiennes may be. She scolded herself for being obsessively worried about it and tried to dismiss it from her mind. But he crept back into the edges of her awareness, disrupting her from any present conversation.

"Really? THAT big?" Nicole heard TD question and looked up to see Nicola nodding most enthusiastically.

The seven girls bustled into the Transfiguration classroom and took their seats, Isabel dragging Jimmy along to sit in a seat next to her near the rear of the class. Hughes welcomed the late comers with a charming smile, which left every female in the room sighing. Surprisingly he didn't question the presence of Jimmy who sat unnoticed staring blankly at a wall above Hughes' head.

Their professor briefly leant over his desk, to fetch a piece of chalk. Ivy leant over her desk also, not for chalk, but for view. Her desk loudly creaked, and Professor Hughes snapped up immediately and turned to see Ivy half falling off the front side of the table.

"What are you doing Miss Lam?" He looked quizzical, but with an arse like that, it's not like he didn't already know.

"Oh um… I was just looking-"

TD coughed quite loudly "at-your-arse"

"-for… my… marker" Ivy finished very red in the face. She got off the table and sat back down properly on her seat, and smiled sweetly at Hughes for a moment, and then began opening her text book.

"Funny… I thought we used quills" Isabel said, and sneered at Ivy.

Several people sniggered, and Ivy mysteriously disappeared behind her upside down textbook.

The students were instructed to copy down what was written on the board and they did so. Nicole, Isabel and Anie finished first. Anie whipped out some lasagne she had saved from last night's dinner and Nicole and Isabel began to help themselves.

Isabel used her fork also to lovingly spoon feed the warm pasta into Jimmy's slack mouth. He managed it alright, and actually seemed to brighten and become more aware as the lasagne was so wonderfully good.

Shortly the smell had wafted over to Nicola, who became distracted, and abandoned her parchment and ink for Bolognese and Béchamel sauce.

"What? Girls! Stop that, this isn't a restaurant!" Hughes said, realising the sudden small disturbance.

"It should be!" Nicola snapped angrily, shovelling pasta into her mouth.

Hughes was taken aback by the girl's sudden aggressive attitude. He walked over to see what it was they were eating. As he did, he noticed Nicole and Isabel reclining, with their legs resting on additional seats – obviously conjured. Because the two girls were so tall, their feet hung off the edges.

Their professor seemed to be distracted for a moment, bending over slightly and staring at the girls legs: very long and very smooth (Isabel had finally gotten around to waxing hers).

Anie was also distracted. Not by her friend's legs… but by her teachers rear end.

Nicola cleared her throat abruptly; "AHEM" and Ivy gave the professor a fierce glare. She was jealous. He had paid her legs NO attention at all!

Nicole also noticed his perving. Isabel, however, was still devouring Anie's lasagne – too busy to notice.

"Man this tastes good!" Isabel said, as she stretched her legs and waving her feet as they hung off the edge of the chair. Suddenly she felt something at her feet, something hard and solid. She thought it to be Hughes' leg, but upon inspection, it was not quite Hughes' leg… but his -

"PROFESSOR!" Nicole jumped up in the air, shocked as all hell. Isabel was at a loss for words, but looked like she was about to burst out laughing. And Ivy was once again leaning over her desk, this time, VERY wide-eyed.

By now Briellen had whipped out her magical camera and was clicking furiously. The sudden flashes of light seemed to bring Hughes out of his daze… and alert him of the "rising" situation.

"CLASS DISMISSED!" He roared.

This woke the rest of the class up. Luckily, no one but the seven girls had seen what happened. Hughes hid himself behind a book. Ivy stood tip-toed, trying to catch one last glance. Until she felt someone grab onto the back of her shirt and pull her away along with the other girls.

It was Hagrid.

"Come on girls; go to your next class. While I have my way with him. I mean, you know. Take care of him." Hagrid scratched at his beard as if it itched him. He looked slightly smaller too. And with finer hands that sported long delicate nails.

"Oh Hagrid!" Said Ivy delightedly, "You got a manicure, just like I suggested?"

"No you nitwit." Hagrid swiped at Ivy and lifted his beard right off his face. Isabella beamed from behind the bushy eyebrows and wig. "This is my get-into-Hogwarts-free-card." She quickly replaced the beard, transforming back into Hagrid.

Isabel was supporting Jimmy and suddenly threw him on Nicole to carry for her. "Isabella, what did you do with the real Hagrid," she said simultaneously popping each of her knuckles.

"Don't worry. I didn't kill him or anything. He's in a hole. I feed him every now and again. I've been here a couple of days you see. He's a very demanding prisoner. I mean I JUST fed him on Saturday and already he's asking for food. Isn't he supposed to be an all invincible giant? So, I gave him some rock cakes and wine to shut him up." She smiled toothily, "I think he's becoming fond of me.

Nicole angrily slumped Jimmy back across Isabel's shoulders. "After dinner today we've got Quiddich practice. You're welcome to come down; our next match isn't for two weeks or so. So we're most likely going to be mucking around. We have a lot to catch up on." She gave Isabella a warm smile and headed off after Anie, Nicola, Briellen and TD who had already left for charms.

Isabella laughed again, in Hagrid's booming chuckle and ambled away, waving over her shoulder at Isabel, who was left alone with Ivy and Jimmy.

Isabel gave it a moment of consideration before whipping her wand out and suspending Jimmy in mid-air. "Well, come on then Ham. Off to Charms we go." Ivy stared back at Isabel stonily and led the way to Professor Flitwicks classroom.

In this class, Jimmy was livelier than ever, and Isabel spent little time attending to her work, instead working memory modification charms into Jimmy's brain, hoping to lessen his overall confusion. He now believed he had always been a half blood wizard, as well as the Mindless Self Indulgence lead singer. He thought Isabel was his glamorous girlfriend who had brought him to stay with her in England while she studied as they couldn't bear to be apart.

They were all over each other for the rest of the lesson, as Isabel meticulously planned the details of his accommodation at Hogsmeade.

Nicola turned away from Isabel with a disgusted look on her face, "Just wait till Voldy finds out. He'll blow apart the entire school and we'll all be fucking killed because she's a horny little –"

"Don't you talk about her that way," roared Jimmy, with his eyes unfocused. "I'LL BLOW YOU APART, ABRA KEDABRA!"

Ivy scoffed, "Oh shut up pee man. You're in no position to be making threats."

Everyone actually laughed at Ivy's comment and agreed with Nicola silently. There'd be hell to pay when Voldemort found out.

By lunchtime the hall was buzzing with talk of the disappearance of Fiennes. The teachers had been spreading the rumour that he was in St. Mungo's with chronic fevers, and would be back shortly. Nicole felt as if it was being said to cover the unease that he had not been found.

Draco wandered over at lunchtime to sit with the girls. "Hi, Draco. How are you feeling," this came from Anie who was looking concernedly at his head bandages.

"Yeah, I'm fine thanks Ana." He stooped gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. The girls fought to contain their laughter at the surprise on Anie's face as she turned beet red.

"My father's coming this weekend, to 'watch me practice Quiddich.' He told me to let Nicola know that he'd like to talk to her at sometime. If she would like to." He looked at Nicola and raised his eyebrows.

Nicola choked on the pumpkin juice she had just swallowed and coughed with her eyes watering. "Yes… that'd be fine… Draco." She wheezed it out, clasping at the table for support.

TD thumped her soundly on the back, and it did more damage than good, as Nicola's face flew straight into her plate. Thankfully she was only eating a sandwich, and her face came up relatively clean; if not crummy.

TD's eyes widened in apology, and she hastily shovelled food into her own mouth as if it could redirect Nicola's focus back to the food. It worked; Nicola appeared too lazy to make any sort of come back and finished eating her lunch.

Ivy, sensing a fight, left the table to 'find Harry'. But everyone knew it was just because for some reason, whenever anyone fought, it was always Ivy who seemed to get hurt.

Isabel was still with Jimmy, crooning over him and spoon feeding him pie and ice cream. She glanced up at the teachers table to see a short Hagrid grinning at her from beneath a bushy beard. 'Hagrid' gave her an approving nod and Isabel smiled back before turning her attention back to the still slightly drugged out man.


	10. Suspense, Sort Of

"Swish and flick!" squeaked the tiny Charms professor.

"No shit, Sherlock" Nicola growled. She had been in a bad mood ever since Ivy woke up and came down into the common room, earlier in the morning. Nicola felt, Ivy was irrationally happy and had no reason for it, especially since it was 6am at the time.

"You should try being happier, Nic. You'll find yourself feeling engligt…"

"I think I should try KILLING YOU!" Nicola yelled so loudly, Professor Flitwick fell backwards off his stack of books... two seconds later the stack of books collapsed and engulfed the small man.

Nicola and Isabel laughed hysterically as Briellen hurried over to help the teacher she favoured above all. The girls knew that beyond the pile of books a great deal of blushing was happening.

"Nicola, you're such a bitch! And Isabel… well… you're just cruel!" Ivy hissed. Everybody in the class stopped and looked at Ivy, taken aback by her boldness. This was the first time Ivy ever spoke back to Nicola and Isabel.

"Cruel? I'll show you cruel. _CRUCI_-" Isabel was interrupted mid-spell by Nicola.

"_INCENDIO!_" Nicola cried, the spell met Ivy's head, and caused it to set on fire.

All fell silent.

TD looked completely shocked, and Anie who was standing next to her looked as if she had seen a ghost. Nicole however, looked at the dazzling bright sight with an expression that suggested she was hardly paying attention. In fact, she was examining one of her cuticles. Isabel just looked as if she wanted to laugh, but was holding it back due to noting that perhaps now wasn't the greatest time.

Nicola looked between all of them and Ivy's burning head, appearing as if she didn't ever remember casting it in the first place. Ivy, herself, looked insanely comical, her body standing in the middle of the classroom with a head on fire… and Briellen and Professor Flitwick were still somewhere beneath the mountain of books behind his desk.

No one thought to splash a little water on her.

"I'm… going… to go and get… help…" Anie said, slowly backing out of the room, obviously stricken with fear, but not taking her eyes off Ivy's awkward body. Anie raced down the halls and soon found she was running in circles – obviously dazed by the strange event that had just taken place. She saw a narrow corridor to her left that she thought looked very unfamiliar. She ran down the corridor not knowing where it would take her. Suddenly she slipped, and slid down a slanted surface and through a trap door.

Everything went black. She couldn't see. A great feeling of dread came over her as she continued to fall through the abyss.

(-Poof-) Suddenly her fall was broken by a soft cushion type thing.

"… Ughh… What?" Analise found herself lying on a bed. A nice, comfy, soft, squishy bed covered in green and silver quilts. Her bed. She sighed a great sigh of relief; she picked herself up and reached for the door handle. Just at that moment, she momentarily lost her balance, and Analise fell back onto her bed, silently thanking the Slytherin headmaster for making sure they were so soft and fluffy.

But there was something, not quite as soft. And it made a 'harrumph' sound when she shifted to look at what it was.

"Analise… I'm so sorry – I… I didn't know you were going to… uh. I'll go now." Draco looked up at her, with a pillow in his hands."

She stared at him, "Draco, what are you… are – are you SNIFFING my PILLOW?"

He looked sheepishly at her, and put the pillow down. With his hair ruffled and his clothes dishevelled, Anie began to feel a certain feeling… and she knew where it was going to lead. Draco; unfortunately, did not. So when he saw Anie's head go down and begin to unzip his pants with her teeth, he was understandably startled.

Pulling his tie up over his head, she grabbed at his collar and began to undo the buttons. She placed small kisses along the centre of the chest that was bared to her. He smiled down at her, his pale blue eyes strangely luminescent in the dark and pulled her closer, fumbling behind her back for the clasp of her bra. Once done (or rather; undone), he trailed his fingers down her face and to the small hollow at the base of her neck, kissing it softly. She shifted and moved closer, letting loose a small sigh.

His eyes didn't leave her face, "Anie…" he breathed into her hair. She smelled of sandalwood, a scent she had always worn. His breath was hot on her neck, his hands caressing the gentle slope of her back. He lifted her suddenly and carried her to the only bed in the room. The soft down mattress cushioned them comfortably as Draco fit his body next to Anie"s.

"This is perfect," Anie voice sounded muffled against Draco's shoulder.

He chuckled, "And it's finally happening." He settled himself over her, and kissed her again. Anie relaxed into the mattress and rolled to allow Draco more room.

Pow!

She hit the floor with a hard thump. She got to her feet angrily and rubbed at her backside. She seemed to be hitting that floor more and more lately. She had been daydreaming, about that lovely steamy moment of romance she had lived yesterday evening.

Isabel came running into the room, wild haired and bare foot. "HAVE YOU SEEN JIMMY? HE WENT WANDERING AGAIN…"

Anie tried to look more than mildly interested while her thoughts were filled with Draco, "Nope. Can't say I have. Just woke up. Go check the kitchens, Nic told him all these stupid stories about blue house elf's. He seemed pretty interested."

Without a word of thanks, Isabel sprinted back out of the door and bounded down the staircase. She didn't stop to talk to Nicola, TD or Ivy (Who had been healed by a hasty Aguamenti spell) who were conversing quietly in the common room, but continued straight out the portrait hole and hurtled herself down the path of the kitchens. As it turned out, Jimmy was there. Begging, no… demanding access into the kitchens so that he could see the blue house elf's himself. "I must go in," he whined. "I have to see them."

Isabel stopped short next to him and panted heavily, "Jimmy, honey. What are you doing down here?"

"Oh, Isabel! You'll help me, won't you? This bowl of fruit wont let me in… it won't. Make them let me in!" He sounded desperate. "Please!"

Isabel sighed and brought out her wand, "I guess something went wrong with the memory modification charms. Come on, Jimmy. Let's get you fixed up and back in Hogsmeade."

Jimmy sobbed to himself but allowed Isabel to lead him away.

* * *

Olivia waved her tentacles around her face. She released her toxins and breathed them through her gills, slowly; trying to calm herself. The man in her upper leftmost tentacle was squirming violently, not happy to have been captured by the raping and murdering lake dweller.

She held him up and out of the water, feeling him gasp and wheeze frantically.

Well, she thought to herself in a squiddy manner; he shouldn't have come into my lake.

"Let me go," the human said in harsh tones. Olivia didn't understand him obviously, and in annoyance at his stupidity – shook him a few times then dunked him into the water.

If Olivia could grin, at that moment in time she would've. She had just spotted a human with long hair standing over her lake. "Olivia!" She called loudly, her voice distorted by the water between them.

"Nicole!" She blubbered happily, surfacing and giving the girl an affectionate squeeze.

"Olivia, my dear, have you seen a Professor from the school anywhere?" Nicole asked in perfect Squid.

Olivia responded without much enthusiasm, "if you mean him," she lifted the man out of the water, "then yes."

Nicole gave an audible gasp. Unfortunately for her, the Squid interpreted this as a snarl, and whipped the man back from Nicole's reach, making a protective, (and quite moist sounding) squid growl.

Olivia swivelled her eyes around to glare at the man, and in that moment of distraction, Nicole swished her wand and cried, "Accio Professor!" before Olivia had time to react.

Pulling him onto a materialising broom, Nicole kicked off the ground, hard. Suddenly she let out an ear splitting scream. It felt like her head was aflame. In fact it was Olivia, wrapping one of her tentacles around Nicole's long hair and pulling it back with a snarl.

Fiennes started, woke up out of his stupor and snatched at Nicole's forgotten wand. For an agonizing moment, Nicole thought he would leave her to be devoured by the enraged sea fiend.

Instead he cried, "DIFFINDO" and Olivia fell back into the lake with a loud splash, grasping the majority of Nicole's severed locks. They sped away towards the forbidden forest, hearing the Squids angry roar following them from the lake.

"Thank you," said Fiennes honestly. "I don't know how long I could have handled that for. I lost my wand in the water you see, and I couldn't defend myself. If you hadn't have come –" He broke off and Nicole felt more than saw him turn away.

He was now gripping her waist with an urgent fierceness, refusing to be thrown from the broom. His wet clothing soaked her through and Nicole shivered saying nothing, instead looking at the forest and listening for students. She tipped her head down, scanning the few clearings scattered around the edge of the forest. Her shortened hair, hung forwards across her jaw.

_It's very light,_ she thought immediately. _Free._ She shifted her weight on the broom and breathed a sigh of relief. Relief at what exactly? At Fiennes being safe? At being away from all that was happening in the castle? Away from Anie and Draco's lovey-dovey behaviour as it made her feel jealous? No. No, it was just the wind in her face that was making her feel this way.

"Thank you," he repeated. "After the other night, I didn't think anyone would. Least of all, you. I thought I scared you away."

Again silence, save the whistling of the air by their ears as they descended into the clearing.

"Please say something," He said and quickly slid off of the broom. "Please," he repeated.

"I have nothing to say. Not really." She murmured softly.

He tried to meet her eyes. When she refused, he grasped her by the shoulders and bent down to look at her. His blue eyes scanned her facial expression intensely. "Well," he prompted impatiently.

When she stubbornly shook her head, he gritted his teeth and his jaw muscle tensed with restrained temper.

She took a breath, "Well… I suppose I have… a few questions." She looked up at him then, defiantly.

His face hovered above hers; his sandy hair was wet and plastered across his face. A few drops of water still lingered and slid into the small beginnings of an unkempt three-day beard. His own expression and heart beat responded with vigour as he braced himself for the outpouring of secrets that would inevitably follow.

* * *

Anie looked between her two friends. They were currently engaged in some sort of war over a steak. Low growls and hisses were being let loose at various intervals. Anie averted her eyes from this spectacle, embarrassed by their lack of etiquette.

Instead her eyes wandered over to the boy sitting at the end of the Slytherin table. Her mind wandered.

"Anie? Hello, are you there? Earth to Analise sodding Eddington," Briellen waved a freckled hand across Anie's eyes. "I'm trying to talk to you over here."

"Huh?" Anie murmured, "Oh, what?"

Briellen heaved a sigh, "Here I am pouring my heart out to you and you're not even on this solar system."

Their heads both snapped around to see the reoccurring scene of TD launching herself over the table at Nicola, who had the steak by her teeth. All wands, and for that case, hands, had been forgotten. They rolled around on the floor, uttering a series of yelps and barks. TD at one point cawing like a deranged crow. Or cow. Anie couldn't decide.

"So anyway," Anie tried to resume the conversation with as much dignity as she could gather after watching such beastly behaviour, "What were you saying."

"I was trying to tell you of my plan to corner Ron in a broom closet. Now, I know what you said last time about how he wouldn't be tricked by a floating cupcake, but I beg to differ. I put a plain one of the stairs of the great hall; just as an experiment, the other day and he totally went for it!" Briellen babbled when she was excited.

Anie feigned interest, "Oh, really. Tell me more Brezzle."

"Well," she started again, ready for another outpouring of psychotic ranting. "My plan was this time, instead of having it plain, of making it perhaps chocolate or cinnamon or something else very tasty and sweet that Ron is sure to love, and then floating it above the steps. HE'S SURE TO – "

Nicola and TD chose that point in time to resurface; unfortunately TD didn't last long and quickly went back down, due to her face colliding with Briellen's crazily swinging elbow. Briellen also tended to bash people senseless when she was excited.

"– Like it!" She finished, completely ignoring her beating of TD.

Nicola appeared disinterested at whatever was happening, and continued to devour the remains of the steak that TD had failed to dislodge from her teeth. She ripped a chunk off. "You know, we really need to do something today. It's bloody Saturday, and we haven't done a damn thing."

Anie quickly reinserted Briellen into the conversation, hoping for a quick escape for herself. "Hey Brex, tell Nic about your plan for Ron."

As soon as Briellen smiled and took a deep breath, Nicola made pleading eyes at Anie, who quickly slid from the seat and made her get away.

In the entrance hall, TD quickly joined her. "Shall we go down and see Isabella?"

Anie shrugged her shoulders, and they exited the castle via the large oak doors.

"Where's Isabel?" TD asked, throwing an arm companionably across Anie's shoulders, "I thought she'd be down here with us on a Saturday."

"Unfortunately for us, she's got Jimmy and now she's turned all boring and couple-y."

TD snorted, "That's rich, coming from you. And what I heard you did yesterday."

Anie coloured richly, "who told you?"

"Hello," she said matter-of-factly. "The room reeked of it. You should really freshen the air, I couldn't fucking sleep last night. That and all your moaning. Did you dream sex too?"

Anie, who had become flustered and quite angry, snarled at TD, "You're just jealous, because you haven't done it with the potions master."

TD took her arm from Anie's shoulder, "That is soon to be rectified."

"Oh _really?_ _RECtified?_ Perhaps, eRECtified?"

"Yes, yes it will be."

Anie looked thoughtful, "You know, I heard something about the size of Snapey's… uh, Snape Jnr."

Just as TD was about to kill Analise if she didn't swear never to utter those words to another being, a large – and quite dainty – Hagrid, flounced out of a nearby bush and jumped onto them.

They tumbled down the hill.

TD ended up with a head full of leaves. Analise had somehow gotten them caught in her shirt and cleavage.

"I thought you guys were never going to come and see me!" Said Isabella happily, removing her Hagrid mask.

"So did I," TD turned and spat out a wad of leaves. "But, here we are." She looked around herself and with a sudden jolt, realised she actually had no idea where they were.

Just as she opened her mouth to ask, a deep rumbling sob came from beneath them. TD glanced down, quite afraid, and realised with another jolt that they were sitting on what looked to be the top of wooden planks. It appeared Hagrid's cage/hole in the ground was beneath them.

He cried again. "LET ME GO, YE MONSTER. HOW DARE YE KEEP PEOPLE TRAPPED LIKE THIS, EH'? YE FOUL SLUG!"

Isabella swooned loudly, "see how much he likes me! I'm a slug!"

The other two eyed her, thinking her insane.

She tried to explain, "You don't want to know what I was yesterday." She cooed through the wood, "Mummy's here babeh. No need to be afraid." She reached into her humungous Hagrid pants and took out an equally as humungous T-bone steak, and opening a secret catch, threw it down to him along with a water bottle. "You eat up dearie."

And if they interpreted the slurping and chewing sounds correctly, that he did.

* * *

When Nicole finally reached the common room, the fire had all but gone out in the hearth. Only a few flickering silver flames could be seen, fighting for life among the burnt remnants of the logs there. She sat in the empty common room, eyes boring without seeing into the tapestry opposite.

"I thought I heard someone come in," said a voice to her right. Nicole noted it was Briellen, but didn't turn her head to look at her friend. "You missed the entire day, you know, an entire Saturday."

"Yeah," she replied impassively. "I was looking for Fiennes."

Briellen looked over at Nicole's expression and said, "I guess you didn't find him." As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.

Nicole's face crumpled and the only words she said were, "Good night" as she got up off the couch and slouched away to bed.

Briellen was left standing by herself, looking very much like an idiot, when Isabel appeared at the foot of the stairs. As Briellen turned to hug her in greeting, she instead received a sharp slap to the top of the head. Briellen reeled backwards, clutching her face. When she looked up again, the hem of Isabel's cloak was whipping out of sight around the bottom of the staircase. A faint sadistic giggle could be heard.

TD also made an appearance, but slightly more peaceful than Isabel's. "Briellen," she sang, popping her hair around the corner. "We're going to Hogsmeade tomorrow, okay? I need some…stuff."

"Stuffy?" Briellen asked. "Also known as stuff. I have no idea why I just said stuffy."

TD rolled her eyes at Briellen, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

* * *

Hogsmeade the following was iced over. The wind blew past them and cut cruelly into their cheeks, biting at their faces with cold. They shivered as a group and huddled closer into their cloaks. And into each other.

"It's sad Nicola can't be here," said Ivy, pretending sarcasm – but failing.

Briellen cocked her head, "But… she made you bald again, should you be happy she's in detention."

"I WAS BEING SARCASTIC!" Ivy burst out, stamping her feet angrily.

"Normally that goes with the sarcastic tone Ivy," said TD matter-of-factly.

"And this is Zonko's," said Isabel, ignoring the others and linking her arm with Jimmy's. "You can get all sorts of weird stuff in there. I don't much like it. It's all fake. I prefer to cause real pain." She gave a wry smile.

He nodded and pulled her closer into his embrace. "I don't want to stay down here though; I want to stay with you."

Draco and Anie mimed gagging sounds behind their backs as Isabel swooned. "But you have to be safe, Jimmy. And you can't be seen at the school. So, during the day, you mustn't be there."

Jimmy sighed dramatically.

Nicole, TD, Ivy and Briellen hung back without partners, feeling kind of isolated.

They had however; stopped for coffee and drinks, in fact they had stopped everywhere. Isabel wanted Jimmy to know everything about the place where he was to be staying, including all the passages into Hogwarts.

The entire reason they had decided to come was to buy certain products for TD to make sexy-time with a certain potions professor. The shop they had chosen to buy cheap condoms from, however, as clean as it was looked very dark and dingy. They spent as little time as they could in there, and left quickly.

She read the back of the box as they exited the dodgy little shop. "Protect your 'wand' from 'Hogwarts' while entering her 'chamber of secrets'. Nice."

"Can we go into Zonko's Isabel?" Jimmy asked innocently. He made puppy-eyes at her and fiddled with his earlobe.

"No. No, we most certainly cannot," Isabel didn't look at Jimmy, instead she went on in the way of Holden Caulfield, "They're phonies."

Jimmy kicked a stone ill-temperedly. It slid across the length of the road they were on and skid to a halt at the bare feet of a black cloaked man, who immediately looked up and locked his red eyes on them.

The group immediately began to back away. Isabel, strangely enough, was the fastest. The hand that wasn't occupied with her wand grabbed at the back of Jimmy's coat and yanked him back, without thinking that she could've choked him quite violently.

Without so much as a noise of wind, Voldemort glided over to them, eyes locked on those of the elusive Isabel, who was now attempting to drag Jimmy back into the nearest store.

The rest of the group, quite obviously scared shitless, could only stand there; white faced and immobile in the face of this very intimidating dark Lord.

Without warning, Voldemort let off a loud sneeze. "I might have a cold." He drawled, jokingly. They all stared pointedly at his feet. How could anyone walk around without shoes on in November? He sniffed and rubbed his face, "Tissue?" He asked pleasantly enough to Isabel.

She shook her head and gave a quick, anxious glance at Anie. "Anie…" she whined, "tissues?"

Draco, who had taken a protective stance in front of most of the girls, threw a puzzled look at his Lord, "But, master, you don't have a nose…"

Voldemort, suddenly in a fit of rage, threw his hands up and let out an almighty scream. Isabel was inevitably aroused by this, and under the pretence of saving her beloved Jimmy, threw him to the side and stepped closer towards the cold stricken Voldemort.

"Don't worry," she said soothingly. "I wish I could get rid of my nose. They're kind of a burden actually."

Voldemort almost smiled at her attempts to cheer his sullen mood. "Who is that man?" He demanded, pointing a clawed fingernail at Jimmy, and hissing through his teeth.

"No one of consequence," replied Draco for her, "He's mainly with me. A friend of mine, he's never been to Hogsmeade before, we thought we'd show him around."

Voldemort glided closer to the skinny man, "Ahh, yes," he hissed, tipping his head to the side, and smiling a lopsided smirk. "That's where I have seen you before. You're in that ridiculous Muggle band. Mindless Self Indulgence; sounds sensible," he said, prodding Jimmy on the head with a taloned forefinger.

Jimmy baulked and turned white. He groped around in his pants for his wand. The wooden one, mind you. It would've been a very inappropriate time for the other one.

Voldemort spotted this hand manoeuvre and whipped out his own, "YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME, MORTAL?"

Wandless, and clearly about to die, Jimmy puffed out his chest, and prepared to speak to Voldemort with the most courageous tone he could muster. "Isabel shagged me!"

Voldemort threw back his wand arm, and in one of those chance moments of fate, his body chose that exact time to let loose a sneeze. "AVADA KADARVCHOO!" His body seized violently, but the green burst of light that had erupted from the end of his wand raced, with deadly accuracy, straight towards Jimmy's chest.

..

i have nothing to say

review me.

xx


	11. Departure

_Voldemort threw back his wand arm, and in one of those chance moments of fate, his body chose that exact time to let loose a sneeze. "AVADA KADARVCHOO!" His body seized violently, but the green burst of light that had erupted from the end of his wand raced, with deadly accuracy, straight towards Jimmy's chest._

Jimmy threw himself out of the way before the spell managed to collide with him. "Uhhh," he yelled as he hurled himself to the floor.

Isabel was white-faced and shaking as she rushed forwards to aid her beloved. With an unsteady hand she hauled him to his feet before pulling him into a hug. Jimmy seemed lost for words as Isabel brushed gravel off his shirt.

Voldemort looked almost apologetic, "It sort of slipped out." He said in the way of an apology. "Uh, I guess, I'll… go." He turned his head after giving Isabel a last sweeping glance and rose into the air, disappearing like smoke.

A gust of wind blew across the group, swaying them slightly to the side. Isabel felt sudden unease for the state of Jimmy's health, and steered him, determinedly, to his house in Hogsmeade.

Nicole latched herself onto Briellen, who was trembling and puffing out warm misty breaths of air so fast, that with her red crown of hair, it looked like she was on fire. Ivy, who had actually been on fire, looked the opposite. Her wig was wet and lank with cold and her nose had turned pink at the tip.

They all made their unsteady way back to the castle, feeling very melancholy. Isabel joined them later that night; her lip red from the constant biting on it, in her anxiety for Jimmy.

Nicola greeted them all without a thought as to their ashen-faced expressions, and told them all about her detention with McGonagall. Everyone listened without much interest. Mild disgust, however, was always shown when Nic repeated a particularly gruesome curse that she had inflicted upon the Professor.

"This is what happened," Nic gushed, rushing forwards to tell her friends of her night.

* * *

Nicola turned to look at McGonagall. Unfortunately for Minny, she now looked as if she had several extra legs, a head she didn't need, and a fairly bad case of acne.

"I'lla getsh you for thish Mish Lane!" She spat out, her robes twisted and stretching across her now extra flesh.

"Sure you will, Professor," Nicola walked around McGonagall and examined her handiwork. "I won't hold my breath."

* * *

"…That's disgusting, why did you do that?" Ivy was looking at Nicola like she didn't even know her.

Nicola appeared affronted, "Well why not? I'm not allowed to innocently torture a teacher for no reason other than my own amusement?"

Everyone appeared to have nothing to say to this, and shrugged at each other; before turning their thoughts back to private things.

* * *

The weather had taken a rather dramatic turn in the past few weeks. A relatively cold pre-winter had turned into the deadliest of frosts. The girls spent most of their time around the fire, wishing the snow would stop so the Quiddich game that they all wanted so much would not be postponed any longer.

Isabel particularly hated winter, as a slight girl; there wasn't much on her to keep her warm. Besides Jimmy – who seemed very content to spend his nights in front of the Slytherin fire also.

However, of late there had been more assignments due than they ever thought was possible and the time in front of the fire was mostly spent scribbling with heavily chewed quills on rolls of parchment.

Anie, who was pouring more energy and work into her schooling than was necessary, was staring dully at her ink blotched essay with red-rimmed eyes. Draco was absentmindedly drawing circles on her back, reading the daily prophet, which he had propped up against a pillow.

She sighed and leant back into his chest and the circle of his arms.

"Stop working for a minute," he whispered. "Let's go for a walk."

She suppressed another sigh, "I can't, I have to get this done." With the greatest reluctance, she pulled herself back into a sitting position and tugged her essay out of the hands of Nicole, who was attempting to copy with Isabel.

Meanwhile, Briellen was furiously re-thinking and re-conspiring her plan. It had taken a frightful turn when she was Ron playing tonsil tennis with Hermione behind one of the library bookshelves.

TD however, wasn't trying to finish essays – instead she was playing idly with a curl of hair and pouring over old potions books. There was a contest soon, to win Felix Felicis; and she intended on winning. After the truth-revealing incident in charms, all her spare bottles of it had been broken.

Isabel broke the silence, "Seriously, I don't even know what the _fuck_ I'm writing," she threw down her quill in disgust. "I just wrote surprised instead of surpassed. Well, you know what, Herbology can go fuck itself."

Jimmy began to knead the knots of tension from Isabel's shoulders. Everyone made a face and looked away.

"Colie," whined Anie. "Help me! You've done this haven't you?" She held up her Charms composition.

Nicole grimaced, and ran a hand through her shortened hair. "Yeah, but I don't know if it's right. Non-verbal charms are harder than the transfiguration ones. And I nearly spontaneously combusted in class yesterday when Hughsie was talking about them."

"I nearly spontaneously combusted in class also. But not because of the spells," Ivy added.

Jimmy immediately sat up taller, a frown replacing the small smile he had had on earlier. Isabel noticed this and cooed into Jimmy's ear, "Jealous?"

He scowled, "Hogwarts doesn't need someone like him."

"Someone as delicious as him you mean?" Teased Nicola.

Jimmy seemed to be teetering on the edge of a massive mental breakdown before lashing out, palm first at Draco, throwing him back against the couch.

Draco gave a yell and clapped his hands quickly to his nose. Analise managed to pry them lose after a bit, showing blackish blood coving his face. His nose appeared to be broken.

"Episky," Anie said, pointing her wand at Draco's face. "What the hell was that for? You broke his damn nose!"

Jimmy seethed, "I had no one else to hit. You're all girls."

Isabel palmed her face, squealing happily, "You're so considerate!"

* * *

The time had come, unfortunately, for the Christmas tree to be brought in. I say unfortunately, because normally this is Hagrids job. Without a wand, Isabella was being pressured by the school to drag in the tree without having any way to go about doing that.

She intended dragging it with nothing but brute force, but this proved to be useless, as her finely manicured hands often gave way to the cold and pain before she could drag it five inches.

Eventually the idea of having a thestral attached to the tree and pulling it for her began to form itself in her mind. The idea didn't seem to whacky, she thought, scowling a little. Nicole showed up then, with a scarf she had bought in Hogsmeade for her groundskeeper friend. Isabella was delighted, to say the least, and wasted no time reaping the benefits of having a fully fledged sixteen year old witch for a friend; and swiftly put her up to the enormous task.

Draco was in a state of great anticipation over breakfast the following morning, he was looking forward to the upcoming holidays, over which he would be introducing his girlfriend to his rather overprotective father.

After they had eaten, they remained in their places, awaiting Professor McGonagall's descent from the staff table. "Anie," Prompted Draco, touching her lightly on the hand. "Are you going to put your name down?"

Nic brandished the sheet in front of Anie, who frowned and snatched it out of the air. "No. Unfortunately for me, my parents are away this Christmas. This means I'm staying at school." She attempted to thrust the piece of paper back at Draco, who was looking rather annoyed.

"Don't be ridiculous Analise," snapped Draco. "You're coming home with me then."

Anie flinched, taken aback by the harshness of Draco's tone.

"Wow, the Malfoy Manor. What an honour," said Isabel. "Well, since I don't see the rest of us getting an invitation anywhere, I guess I'll just stay in the stupid school."

Draco sighed, "Alright, you can come too. I'm sure my father won't mind."

"Hey!" Protested Nicola loudly, "what about me?"

"Merlin's fucking beard, you can all come then," Draco folded his arms across his chest as Anie stood on tiptoe and softly kissed the angle of his jaw.

"Thanks," she said.

Nicola was delighted, understandably, and turned faintly pink. The lord, (… and other legimency-ers) only knew what she was thinking. But I think the rest of them had a particularly clear idea, nonetheless. She began spooning in the last of her porridge with more enthusiasm than was warranted for so early in the morning.

McGonagall was standing as far away from Nicola as possible, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Wait politely Minny," Nicola growled. "I've not finished gushing yet."

McGonagall's attempt at a stern demeanour, suddenly failed and she blubbered incoherently at Nicola, who managed to catch the word "please" among her many other apologetic words.

The group were looking curiously at Minny, not really surprised by her reaction, more intrigued.

"What?" Nicola said impishly as Ivy jabbed her in the ribs. "I didn't do anything to her whatsoever. Really. Other than the detention."

Everyone sighed. "She really did seem very uncomfortable," commented Ivy, staring at McGonagall's hastily retreating back. "You did well."

"Thanks," replied Nicola. "

"We've got potions now," noted Isabel, who had brought out her timetable. "…Let's go."

Walking to Potions was uneventful due to the serious lack of first and second years. Not only had they begun to avoid this particular group at all times, but most of them were over-packing the Hospital Wing, which happened to be lacking in the Matron department.

They were set for a new one after the holidays, but until then, the librarian, Madam Pinch, had been doing her best with what healing spells she knew. Unfortunately, that wasn't many. She had, however, managed to turn quite a few of them into small, quite pretty, spiral-bound notebooks. Two of which Nicole was carrying around in her pocket, jotting story notes down on.

Not only that, but they were late.

"Sit," snapped Snape, as they hurried into the classroom, trying to avoid his eye. "Would you care to explain to me, why you are late?"

"Not particularly," said Draco and Snape coughed. "Sir," he added as an afterthought.

"Well, okay." Snape strode back to his desk, flinging open his dark cloak and brandishing his wand at the chalkboard. Writing appeared there, instructing them on brewing a particularly hard potion and announcing, once again, that the best potion would win a bottle of Felix Felicis.

TD perked up immediately, determined to win, and set about chopping up her ingredients. The rest of the group were barely able to sustain consciousness during the lesson, feeling rather worn down and in need of a serious holiday. Or Quiddich.

"Man I want Quiddich," sighed Briellen wistfully.

Isabel raised an eyebrow, "You don't even play Quiddich Spindle… what are you talking about?"

"I just want to watch, I've missed it," she replied. Briellen slumped forward with her head resting on her hand. "But this stupid snow has kept us all inside. We're going to have to have an extra game next term, which means you guys will be practising more often, and –"

"So, anyway Ivy?" Isabel cut Brielle's ranting short and turned to her small friend. "Coming to Draco's this Christmas?"

"Hmm, yeah. But after I see my mother first, I'm bringing Harry over to introduce her, then Harry's going to Ron's and I'll meet you there."

"Sounds good," Nicole said, eating the liquorice that she had snuck into class. She tore a chunk out of it with her teeth and grinned at them. "This winter looks like it's going be fun. I've gotta see my parents too, but I'm not staying long, they're going away. And while Daniel's on tour, I don't have to see him either."

"I'm not seeing my parents at all," offered Briellen hesitantly. She didn't often like to include herself in conversations. For some reason it always seemed that they ended up with her being cast aside and not talked to.

"How come?" This came from a slightly sleepy Nicola, who had resorted to asking questions and getting involved in conversation to help keep herself awake.

"I don't know, they're being ridiculous and I have to stay in the castle," Briellen turned to Nicola, "I can't be bothered asking my parents permission to stay at Draco's. Do you think, if they ask or anything difficult comes up your parents could pretend I was with you?"

"Sure, why not?" Nicola shrugged.

"Tahenie," said Snape huskily, looking down into her cauldron. He had sort of appeared out of nowhere. "You've done well. You've won, congratulations."

A few sighs of disappointment sounded across the room. TD grinned widely, and smoothed her hair back from her forehead.

* * *

It was beginning to get dark, and the fire was dwindling. It spluttered and spat sparks at them, as they lat congregated around it; finishing off essays.

"I can't wait until this term is over," sighed Anie, resting her forehead against her now finished homework. "These assignments are killing me."

"I know," complained Nicole. "I'm so dead I feel like I've taken a wrecking ball to my face every time I wake up."

TD and Isabel laughed, but both agreed they sort of felt the same way.

Isabel was lying across one of the lounges, forcing the small first years to sit on the floor away from the fire. She was particularly moody that night, it probably had something to do with Jimmy feeling so out of place.

"Isabel," he had said to her earlier in the day, "It's okay, I'll be all right. You can go back to the castle now."

They had been standing in his Hogsmeade apartment, shivering from cold and fear. His near-death encounter with Voldemort had set their nerves on edge. Isabel had planned to stay the night, but Jimmy had reassured her that he would be alright. "Voldemort wouldn't dare to attack me again, knowing how it hurts you."

She turned to take him in her arms but he flinched and moved away. "Why do you do that?" She asked, tracing the line of his jaw with a pale fingertip.

"Do what?"

"Every time I feel I get closer to you, you pull away. Why do you do that?" She looked around his room properly for the first time and noted that his things weren't as scattered as they normally were. She glanced back at him then; he was steadily avoiding her gaze. "I have this strange feeling that you're leaving."

He was silent.

"Jimmy?"

He shrugged then, "I sort of feel as if I don't belong here."

"But _I'm_ here," she had pleaded, grabbing his hand.

He turned his face away, "I know, but I think I need to go and see my band. When I ran off to see you, I don't think I gave them an explanation, they're probably wondering where I am."

"Okay… well, when are you planning on leaving?"

"I don't know," he replied, sadly shaking his head. "After Christmas maybe?"

Isabel looked away, sniffing slightly. "Alright…just don't stay away too long."

"I never would."

_And he won't,_ she reminded herself. She stretched lazily and rolled to her side, the leather of the lounge making a pleasant squeaking sound. She hadn't told any of her friends about Jimmy leaving. She wasn't sure what sort of reaction she would get, and came to the conclusion that a silent getaway would probably suit him better than an awkward and fake goodbye. She knew that her friends wouldn't exactly be _sad_ to see him go.

"Hey TD," said Nicola, calling to her friend across the room.

TD appeared oblivious, staring into the distance.

Nicola, angered, brought out her wand and screamed, "DENSAUGEO!" A bright white light, collided with TD's face.

TD's teeth began to grow at an alarming rate; she screamed and thrashed around as she began to look more and more like an overgrown beaver.

The common room quickly cleared, most people frightened for their lives by this buck toothed weirdo.

"Impedimenta," said Nicole quietly, pointing her wand at TD. Her teeth immedietly stopped growing. Nicole then muttered the counter-curse and shrunk them back to their original size.

"What the fuck was that for, you bitch?" she cried, peering at her teeth in a mirror.

Nicola crossed her arms, and glared at TD. "You ignored me."

"You could have yelled or asked someone to get my attention, LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING!"

"MAYBE I'M NOT A NORMAL HUMAN BEING"

"NO FUCKING SHIT SHERLOCK. YOU'RE BEYOND FUCKING INSANE!"

"ENOUGH!" Screamed Briellen, cutting into the argument, both girls turned to her immediately, red faced and angry. "What did you want anyway?"

"I wanted to ask her if I could have her Felix Felicis for this holidays… I'm ashamed to admit it, but I think I need a little luck to get Draco's father to like me," she went, if possible, even redder.

Anie stared, "You need him to like you? What about me?"

"What about you?" Countered Nicola, "As if you need help, Draco will help you. I, however, am on my own."

"Well," TD appeared to consider this carefully, "I suppose so."

She reached into her pocket to fish out the little golden bottle of luck, to find, ooh la la, it was not there!

"How is that possible?" she wondered aloud, throwing random things from her pocket to the floor. But, still, she could not find it.

"Maybe you left it in potions?" asked Nicole, looking up from the homework she had just finished tearing to pieces. "I think I remember you setting it down on your desk."

"Damn it," TD muttered and got to her feet. "I'll go get it now."

"Thanks," smiled Nicola, putting away her wand. "You're a real pal."

TD smiled toothily back at her, front teeth still slightly too large.

Nicole cringed, but stayed silent; perhaps she hadn't shrunk them enough.

Anie grinned, and winked at everyone behind TD's back, as TD stood, trying to act casual and all but ran from the room.

* * *

TD stalked forwards, the lights coming off various potions glancing off her hair, making her seem to be sparkling as she walked.

She went straight to her regular table and rustled the things around – looking for the potion vial.

"Are you looking for this," said a velvety voice.

Her mouth quirked when she turned and spotted him perched on one of the many stools littering the classroom floor.

He held up a hand, a small bottle filled with golden liquid was lying in his palm, winking up at her. "You won't need it," he continued, staring at her with those dark eyes of his. "You may get lucky without it."

"Really." Td moved slowly towards him. "That's what you think?"

"That is what I know," he breathed softly.

TD had a vague feeling that any conversation past this point would venture into the pointless category. But, as their eyes lingered on one another's – they found there was no need to talk at all.

A hundred questions whizzed through TD's mind, but none of them seemed appropriate. _Weren't we…taking a break? Why are you here? Why am _I_ here? Do you realise the effect you're having on me? Do you know that you're the reason that I can't concentrate?_

Suddenly from the silence, an awkwardness rose. TD couldn't meet his eyes, the blood rose on her face and pooled beneath her skin. Snape, however, seemed perfectly calm. He had stood and now walked over to her.

Her heart began to beat an uneven, disjointed rhythm. Her knees shook terribly, loud enough to make her wonder why he didn't stop and look at them with that hard expression he reserved for annoyances. She wondered momentarily what he would have seen on her face, for she herself couldn't tell what expression she was pulling.

Snape had come closer now; close enough to touch her lightly on the hand. It sent a wave of apprehension sweeping through her. She swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat.

His mouth was on hers then, and she lifted her head slightly to meet it, pressing herself against him and twining a hand through his hair. With a fluid movement, he lifted her up, and placed her on one of the desks, throwing things to the floor as he did it.

"I had to come and find you… to tell you – to tell you I need you," she began, lifting her mouth from his with great effort.

He was panting heavily against her neck, his hands rested at her waist, twitching with his desire for her. He tried to keep his voice even, "I need you too."

She smiled coyly and pushed him back. In a daze, he watched her, as her hands lifted to slide off her cloak. Her fingers found the clasp, and it fell to a pool at her feet. He watched as the rest of her clothes did the same.

So he stood, and watched her with longing, TD smiled again, determined to have him before her. She drank in every drop of desire Snape was patiently showing, yearning etching lines into his forehead.

Snape gasped his mouth slightly open, his need unbearable. He edged forwards, pulling her to his chest. They kissed, frantically, with a passionate edge. Still locked together at the lips, TD's fingers were struggling with the buttons on Snapes shirt. He helped her without hesitation, nearly bursting the buttons from the sewing.

As a still relatively young man, of his thirty-three years, the rugged torso now exposed to her was slightly bronzed and wide, narrowing down to where a snake-hide belt was pulled tight across the waistband of his dark pants.

"Tahenie," he murmured, exhaling against her collarbone. He had the top of his head resting against her neck as she sat on a table, winding her fingers tightly in his hair. Her fingers wove through its brittleness and without snagging a hair, gently teased out the knots.

"Your hair is so fine," she wondered softly into the back of his neck, lips brushing gently against the fevered skin there.

His head involuntarily lifted to catch her mouth in his own. TD's eyes closed and her hands rose to clutch at his chest and shoulders, pulling herself closer into his embrace. Softly, Snape disentangled himself from her, turning swiftly but gently from her touch and retuning her hands to his hair. "Should…I – should we stop? Tahenie, I don't think I could bring myself to stop."

She still had her eyes closed. Blindly, she turned her head, searching for his mouth with her own. "Stop, why?"

Snape had his hands planted firmly beside TD on the desk. "I won't be able to now," he groaned, making TD open her eyes to the sound.

What was it? Had he dashed her hopes as oddly as he dashed everything else? Slowly, and nimbly, her fingers fell to unbuckle the clasp of the belt at his waist.

He looked at her, his black eyes astonished. "Are you sure?"

She smiled, brushing the back of her hand against his cheek and jaw; finally, taking his face between her hands and resting her lips against his softly.

Snape sighed, and returned her touch, no longer hesitant, but full of vigour. He heard her sharp intake of breath, and smiled inwardly.

As the rest of his body was bared to her, TD could barely contain her curiosity. He was as eager to explore her body as she was to explore his. Giggling and laughing, he drew her solemnly into his bedchamber and shut the door.

In a rush of ardour, he pressed himself bodily against her, chest to chest, mouth to mouth. Her lips moved against his, silently and willingly; parting and breathing in his heady scent. The warmth of her hands trailing along his shoulders weakened his knees to the point where he sat upon the bed to steady himself; drawing her down beside him.

He lay her down; her dark hair splayed across the white of the sheets, and took her to him, roughly and passionately. Holding her close, and throwing his head forward as he uttered his release in her ear. Afterwards, he lay across her, panting.

"Well," she said, breathing heavily. "You've shown me passion… now show me a man's patience."

He met her unswerving gaze, and felt the heat rise in his face; ashamed by his rush. He lifted himself off her and began again, slowly, determined to take his time over the loving of her. His movements became tender and slower, her soft voice urging him on, whispering words of love in his ear.

He brought them both to their peak, and she arched her back beneath him, crying out his name, before falling back against the pillows, still clasping him to her and sank slowly, but ecstatically into sleep.

The dawn was white and soft; creeping past the folded blinds and touched TD on the cheek. She murmured into the pillow and turned her face from the light. Her nose touched something warm; TD opened her eyes to see the softly browned skin of Snapes chest. She lifted her hand and rested it lightly on the hard planes on his stomach; it rose and fell with his breath.

She wiggled up, slipping her arm about him and stopping an inch away from his face. She observed him closely, his perfect lips pursed, his eyelashes dark crescents against his cheeks.

When he awoke, Snape opened his eyes slowly to find TD was already awake in his arms and faced towards him. He peered down at her sleepily, "hello," he said giving TD a little smile.

"Hello," she replied and with her hand, stroked the dark hair away from his brow. He closed his eyes to her touch. "How do we feel this morning?"

Snape shifted, moved closer to her and made a sound in his throat. "Wonderful." He lifted himself onto an elbow and his eyes roamed over TD's face, watching her closely, "perfect" he confirmed.

Long after she left Snape would try to concentrate on the tasks at hand. He would try and shake the thought from his mind of her perfect body under his hands. But never would he forget the sweetness of Tahenie's mouth, or the touch of her soft, soft skin.

A/N:

The chapter is out.

Go TD GO!

Please leave a nice review.

Or a flaming one.

Either way, get those reveiws up.

Love you all.

..

I think.


	12. Arrival, but to what?

* * *

"…and so with more precise flicking we are able to avoid disasters like Mr. Rafferty here," Professor Hughes finished dully, looking pointedly at the dark haired Ravenclaw who was sitting on the floor with a rather undersized cow on his chest.

The people who were still able to retain a mild interest in the class glanced over at him. Another small Ravenclaw squeaked for the Professor to let him up. Hughes conceded, and with an elegant wave and a small 'moo' the cow disappeared into a cloud of purple smoke.

Immediately, the bell sounded for the end of the class and everyone began stuffing their books back into their bags.

"Hold it, hold it." Hughes was looking at the class with an irritated expression. "I hope you've all copied down the syllabus for next term, I want you all to be up to date and on the same page as me when we resume next term."

A few people muttered, "Yes sir" and the class waited expectantly, for him to dismiss them.

"Very well, you are dismissed."

The loud scraping of chairs filled the room and the students threw themselves towards the exit, with as much force as a hurricane.

"I'm going to miss this class," commented Nicola sadly.

The others turned to her, startled. "What did you say? You're going to miss this class?" Asked Nicole. She was looking at Nicola as though she were mad.

Nicola sought quickly to reassure her. "No, no. I said, 'I'm going to miss his arse.'"

"Oh…" said the others. That made much more sense.

It was the last day of lessons and even the three cups of coffee that Nicole had downed that morning were not helping the inevitable boredom that they felt on this day. Somehow, the awful tempt of freedom made the lessons that much longer, and that much more boring.

And they still had another lesson until lunch.

"What have we got now?" Anie asked, kicking Briellen's bag.

Briellen swung her back around to her front and fished out her timetable. "Friday… potions. Great. Hey TD are you ready to see your lover – TD?" She had turned to TD but saw only her back as TD ran with the speed of a cheetah in the direction of the dungeon.

Snape had a slightly happier expression than he normally wore on his face when they entered the room. He actually smiled, which was so unusual that it frightened Ivy, who squawked and promptly hid herself behind a cauldron.

"Welcome all," he sang cheerfully. "Not much to do today, so let's give the place a good clean, then I'll let you go early for lunch."

The silence that followed his words was so full of confusion it was almost a sound itself.

"Are you feeling okay Professor?" Hermione asked, worried. She had walked over to the front desk to check for herself.

Snape fixed her with a withering stare. "Let me remind you that just because I am in a perfectly amiable mood, does not grant you the power to come within a foot of me. That and you're ugly and I don't like you."

Snape made the motion of taking out his wand, but seemed to think better of it. Instead he launched at her, whipped the ever-present heavy textbook from her hand and cuffed her sharply across the back of the head with it. With tears streaming from her eyes, Hermione shuffled back to her desk.

"Alright, quiet."

His command was rather redundant as the room was quieter than a morgue. "There are jars that need to be thrown out and the store cupboard needs to be organized. You've been sloppy this year so there's a lot to do. You," he pointed at the girls table. "Cupboard and jars, manually – go."

Td, Ivy and Nicole ventured into the large maze like cupboard and the rest went to the vials and jars rack and began shuffling through them, Snape shouted instructions at the rest of the class, sorting books, mopping the floor, cleaning acid stains and so forth.

Within moments the class was busy making noise and cleaning things, occasionally a smash would be heard.

"Krup tail, lacewing flies, monkshood or wolfsbane – whatever. Are we alphabetising it?" Nicole was standing on a step ladder with a bag full of what appeared to be small white, forked tails.

"Hello?" She said. "TD? Ivy, are you guys there?"

Nicole peered into the darkness. This cupboard must have been bigger than she thought. Climbing down from the step ladder Nicole brought out her wand.

"Lumos."

A few spiders scuttled away from the light, but one stayed behind – leering at her.

"Arrrgh!"

Isabel, Anie, Nicola and Briellen looked up to see Nicole running as fast as she could with her arms flailing about in the air. She skid to a halt in front of them hopping from foot to foot.

"What is it? What happened?" Isabel yelled, bringing out her wand and crouching into her attacking position.

"Spider," she panted. "In there. Big. I think it had a gun."

Isabel straightened up, "Spider? Well, I'm out. Sick 'em Briellen."

The red-headed girl smiled as if it were a joke and when Isabel kept pointing at the cupboard she blanched and shook her head.

"Fine," Nicola huffed. "I'll go first."

She held up her wand, lit it and led the girls into the cupboard.

They all followed her into the cupboard and for the second time that lesson a scream resounded in the potions class. It was Briellen.

Nicola had lifted her wand light and it was resting comfortably on Snape and TD, mouths locked – hands groping.

"Uh, TD. You've got something on you." Isabel pointed out dully. "And it's making weird noises."

Snape resurfaced with the sound of a wet sucking plunger. "Go away," he said impassively.

"You see, I would – but you're frightening the children. Even the child you appear to be molesting."

"Isabel," TD squeaked, embarrassed.

* * *

The morning of the Christmas holiday departure from Hogwarts was full of noise and last minute packing.

"Have you seen my socks?"

The call resounded above the din of the common room. There seemed to be stuff everywhere as Slytherins, big and small, raced around trying to herd their misplaced belongings.

"Seriously, that's my cloak!"

"Your cloak? It's mine, you jerk!"

A flash of light, a loud crashing sound and the cloak found a home.

"Anie!" Yelled Nicole; and she appeared at the foot of the stairs. "Why is my slip under your bed?"

She was holding up a black satin slip, less modest than the clothing Nicole normally wore.

Anie turned regretfully away from the trunk she had been attempting to close to eye the fabric in Nicole's hand. "I don't know I didn't wear it or take it."

"Well, if you find out who did, can you kick them for me?" She disappeared back up the stairs.

Anie turned to Draco. "I sure will."

Draco gave her a sheepish look and returned his full attention, rather quickly, to her trunk.

"I am all packed out," exclaimed Nicola, and she threw herself atop a pile of laundered clothes.

"You just woke up." Anie protested.

Nicola sighed, "But still."

Anie rolled her eyes, stepped around a few unconscious people and began to clean around the fire.

After a while, when things were found, the dozens of people began to leave. Unconscious bodies regained power over their limbs. The electricity in the air began to dissipate.

Nicole was sitting on the sill in the girl's dormitory, staring out the window. Not one of her favourite pastimes. For some reason, staring out the window that wasn't real always made her feel unsettled. There's always a strange feeling about illusions… illusions like secrets, and lies –believing someone was one thing he was actually another –

She started at a small scraping sound, and looking down, realised that it was her own fingernails on the stone as her hands cured into a first. She tried to calm down and relax. How this man could be affecting her like this, she didn't understand?

Isabel and TD spared her the thought of figuring it out by walking into the room and throwing themselves on Anie's bed.

It was the only one made.

"Hey," said Nicole tonelessly.

They barely glanced up. "Hey," they both replied in much the same way.

"Said goodbye yet?" Nicole came to sit on the bed with them.

TD hesitated, pulled out some green liquorice and shrugged. "I suppose last night was our goodbye."

Isabel grabbed some of the liquorice and chewed it thoughtfully, "me neither. I'm going to meet Jimmy at the station."

Td gave Nicole a sidelong glance, "You?"

Nicole sniffed, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Isabel and TD shared a look and tucked into the liquorice.

"Really," assured Nicole, looking between the two. "I haven't seen him at all, honest."

"Okay, new topic. This one is getting a tad repetitive. You'll tell us eventually," Isabel broke in.

TD started on another piece. "Like what? We've got nothing to talk about."

Nicole smirked. "Um, yes we do. Hello, you totally had a two day shagathon. You two didn't even emerge for food –" Isabel made a disapproving noise. "– and you've been promising details for days." She continued. "So, where are my details?"

"Ooh, are we talking about Snape? You two looked cosy yesterday in potions." Broke in Nicola, who charged into the room.

"No," said TD with a nervous laugh.

"Yes," Nicole chimed in."

TD shot Nicole an annoyed look. "Yes," she gave in. "It was very nice. Really, it was perfect. This was what he said afterwards."

Td and Nicole swooned while the other two mimed gagging into an empty trunk.

Isabel composed herself and smirked at TD, "Was he any good?"

TD fixed Isabel with a withering stare. "Brilliant. But more than just that – he's considerate and gentle, thoughtful –"

"Isn't that the same as considerate?" Nicola asked.

TD frowned, "Ha, no." But she didn't sound convincing.

"Fuck kind and considerate, I want some hot stuff," Nicola sounded slightly wistful as if her mind was elsewhere.

"Baby this evening?" Sang Nicole. "I want some hot stuff baby tonight."

Nicole and TD both clapped their hands over their ears but Isabel drew her wand and pointed it directly at Nicole's bopping head.

"If you ever do that again, I will be forced to blow apart your brains," she growled.

Nicole shut her mouth. "Yes ma'am."

* * *

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"But are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"But are you seriously sur–"

"Isabel," Jimmy broke in. "If you ask me that one more time then I'm not going to come." She sighed and shouldered one of the lighter bags, her forehead creased when she regarded him. "I just wanted to make sure."

"Oh, really?" Jimmy rolled his eyes. "I never would've guessed."

"So, are you su–"

"One more time Isabel and I won't be."

With a reproachful look, Isabel clamped her mouth shut, and watched as Jimmy hefted their joint trunk across the road towards the carriages.

"Hey! Hey, over here!" Briellen was perched on the side of a carriage yelling and waving. They hurried over and took their spots on the black leather seats.

The carriage launched into motion.

"You decided to come along huh?" Asked Draco, who had momentarily taken his arm of Anie's shoulder to make room.

Jimmy clapped Draco on what he could reach of his back and grinned widely. "Yeah, I did. After much discussion," he smiled at Isabel.

She coughed loudly. "So where's Colie?" she said.

TD pointed directly over Isabel's shoulder.

Both she and Jimmy turned to look out the small window to see Nicole sitting on the back of one of the two dark, leathery skinned thestral's pulling the carriage along. Jimmy let out a loud exclamation. "Whoa, how is she doing that?"

"You can't see the thestral Jimmy?" Asked Briellen, wide-eyed.

"The what?"

Nicola made a speculative noise. "How strange, to have not seen death. That's rare in the company we keep. It will soon be amended."

The Thestral turned around to bare it's fangs at the group, as if it knew they were talking about it.

Nicola sprung back, flattening herself against the back of the carriage. "Ugly thing!"

It hissed, red eyes flashing.

"Stop it," yelled Nicole from outside. "You're making her upset!"

"It's making ME upset," countered Nicola, and immediately after speaking she stuck her head out of the window with the intention of gagging, but screamed instead.

They all turned to the sound. And there, above the rise of Hogwarts grassy slopes, an enormous tentacle was waving sadly.

"Bye Olivia – I'll come back and dance with you soon." Nicole yelled, waving back.

Olivia whined piteously, and still waving – the tentacle disappeared below the shining surface of the lake.

Briellen burst into noisy tears. Nicole, surprised by this patted Briellen timidly on the flaming tresses. "It's okay, Briellen. It's only two weeks."

The girl's sobs quietened to a low murmur as the carriage bounced and jerked along the rocky road.

Mmm, rocky road.

Ahem, anyway.

The station was already brimming with students. Nicole slid off the Thestral and ran to get a compartment. When everyone else had loaded their trunks - they wandered around to find her.

Draco and Jimmy left to go and sit with the guys and Ivy left to find Harry. Not long after, Briellen hurried along too, blushing furiously to the roots of her hair.

"And then there were five…" observed Nicole to the other four. The others looked at her blandly and looked away.

The silence stretched out for a while, then Isabel's stomach growled. Shortly after that Nic's stomach rumbled with an answering growl.

The girls glanced at each other and all but at once – stood, opened the sliding door and began calling out for the trolley lady.

"Ah, my dear girls!" Commented the trolley lady happily as she rounded the corner.

"Agnes! How lovely to see you," Nicole responded cheerfully.

"Oh," her wispy white brows pulled together as she counted how many girls there were in the carriage. "We seem to be missing a few." She finished, looking slightly saddened by this.

All at once they began reassuring her that they would buy their friends food for them and she smiled cheerily at them again.

"We'll take it all! Of course, I do mean all of it. None of this; one of every little thing. I want the whole trolley. Including the wheels."

Agnes laughed fondly and watched them pool their money together into Nicole's palms, and started counting the coins. Nicole picked something small and square out of the pile and TD, who coloured – snatched it from her.

"What was that?" Queried Anie.

"I know what it was. "Nicole was smirking knowingly at TD who elbowed her viciously in the ribs when she began giggling.

"Tell me," Anie demanded of them.

Nicole winced at her bruised ribs and shook her head. "No."

"Hey Nicole," replied Anie.

"Yeah?"

"Fuck you." Anie then proceeded to flip Nicole off.

For the next few minutes chewing noises engulfed the compartment with small exclamations of 'pass me that' and 'where'd the frogs go?'

When they were all lying back comfortably after loosening their pants, it was only Nicole who thought it strange that Ivy, Briellen and the others hadn't joined them since.

"Think it's weird that Briellen and Ivy aren't back yet?" Nicole asked.

Isabel flapped a hand nonchalantly. "If they were back where would the pie sit?"

Anie was eyeballing the hot apple crumble sitting in Briellen's spot. "Anyone got a knife?"

* * *

Harry had his arms so tightly wrapped around Ivy's waist that she had begun to notice she was having trouble breathing.

She leant back against the train wall. "Harry," Ivy said with her mouth against his neck. "You're squashing me."

With a start, Harry let go. "I'm sorry, I just – I don't want to go to Ron's this Christmas. I wouldn't be able to leave you… why don't you come to Ron's with me? I want to stay with you."

"I can't, after I leave my house I'm going to Malfoy's manor."

"What!?" He leapt back, removing his hand from up her shirt, where it had been making its steady way to her breastal region. "Why – why would you go to Malfoy's manor?"

"He invited us all over. It's not like he hasn't got enough room." Ivy was looking a little disgruntled at the pause in their making out. She grabbed his hand and returned it to its rightful place up her shirt. "Let's stop talking about this."

"But-" started Harry, looking petty. But Ivy silenced him with her mouth and seeing Neville approaching them in the train corridor, kept his body pressed against hers and conducted him firmly into one of the broom cupboards.

Unfortunately, they stumbled not upon brooms but Briellen, who was kissing and straddling the rather redder than usual Ron. For the thousandth time in what seemed like a very few days, Briellen screamed and brandished her wand, yelling "Impedimenta!"

Ivy and Harry managed to steer clear of the wayward spell, but it just so happened that Neville, who was walking past so innocently, got the full brunt of the spell and was thrown backwards and onto an upstanding knife.

What luck, o poor Neville that you should fall onto a lonely knife, standing up perfectly straight all ready to enter your spinal column.

Nicola walked past absently and peered down at Neville who was still writhing on the floor. He had managed to roll over onto his stomach. The brown handle of the knife was poking out of the middle of his back. "Hey, there it is!" Nicola gave a delightful noise and pried it free. "I've been looking for it everywhere."

Briellen stumbled from the closet, clutching her shirt to her and ashen faced. She stared down at the body of Neville, who had just ceased to move. "I killed him… I'VE BROUGHT ABOUT THE DEATH OF NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM," she said, and promptly passed out.

"Hmm, I've got blood on my shoes," observed Ivy shrewdly. She checked her watch and turned quickly to Harry. "I have to get changed anyway. I'll meet you a little later." She kissed Harry and dragged Nicola away to get changed, her long black hair swishing behind her like horses tail.

"What about Briell-" began Harry loudly, but Ivy had not heard him. Harry surveyed the scene in front of him and turned to Ron. "Well, she's your girlfriend, clean up her mess," and he left Ron, who was sitting on an upturned crate in his underwear to remedy the situation alone.

* * *

"I'm ready now," proclaimed TD. "Can we get off?"

"It would be advisable to wait until the train stops moving," noted Nicole absently, turning the pages of a much beloved fantasy book.

TD, who made a face at her annoyingly logical friend, proceeded to draw a penis in permanent marker on the side of Anie's thigh.

Anie resigned herself to this torture and looked out the window to pass the time. Eventually London came into view and it would be minutes before the train finally stopped at Kings Cross.

"Ok, so who's going where again?" Asked Ivy from the corner.

"I'm going home first," answered Nicole, once again in an absent voice, as if she weren't really paying attention. "Then I'm coming to Malfoy's."

"Like me?" Ivy asked.

"I suppose so."

Briellen, who had been brought to the compartment by a disgruntled looking Ron, let loose a loud sigh. "'Suppose'… just like Neville used to say."

They ignored this weird behaviour.

Anie looked at her friends for the first time in about half an hour, "We're slowing down. Time to disembark."

"Time to disembark?" Repeated Isabel snidely. "Who the fuck says that?"

"You're being rather rude. What's eating you?" Asked Anie.

Isabel looked around to find Nicole chewing on her left wrist. "Nicole is. In fact it is getting a little annoying. Getorfme!" Isabel shook her hand sharply, dislodging Nicole's teeth from her hand.

Nicole looked a little disgruntled as she settled back into her seat. She soon found out she needn't have done that, as the train has just rocked to a stop and all the students began piling out of the sliding doors.

The train conductor was moving among them, hexing and jinxing those who didn't "move along" as he asked. They stood in the doorways, hugging their parents – oblivious to the rest of the school population currently stuck on the bloody train.

"Get out of the fucking way, for the love of God!" Yelled Nicola, who was cursing small first years, left right and centre.

This movement was frowned upon by most of the parents. But eventually they let her past.

When they reached the platform, an asian lady yelled Ivy's name and grabbed her only daughter, pulling her out of the gaggle of people. "We go now," she demanded. "Something's happened. Move fast. The rest of you, get going. I wouldn't want to be here for too long."

"Mum!" Ivy said. She was grasping at her mother's hands, trying to free the front of her shirt. "What's wrong?"

"Now not the time Ivy. We're going home."

Ivy looked wide-eyed back at her friends as her mother resolutely dragged her off the platform.


End file.
